James.galbraith

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made a big splash with his first public remarks since eviscerating abortion rights in the United States. Alito’s comments—made at a legal conference in Rome—mocking the world leaders who spoke out against the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade drew the most attention, but he also offered a screaming warning about his intentions for future decisions.

“I had the honor this term of writing, I think, the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders—who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,” Alito said, before going on to single out British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (joking, “he paid the price”) and Prince Harry (not actually a leader).

RELATED STORY: Extremist Supreme Court majority succeeds in unifying most Americans against it in one term

This was striking, for sure. “Alito apparently didn’t see the need to come across as a dispassionate and fair-minded justice,” Steve Benen wrote of the comments. “Rather, his audience saw a politician giving a political speech, deriding other politicians who dared to disagree with him, and patting himself on the back for having succeeded on a political goal.” 

It’s not the first time, either. Benen pointed to a string of past speeches Alito has given that have each seemed surprisingly political for a Supreme Court justice. It’s almost like Alito is operating as a partisan. And now, with his latest speech, he’s telling the world that he does not care that his decision singlehandedly damaged the Supreme Court’s standing with Americans or the world. Since Alito’s decision in Dobbs, support has grown for reforming the court, while its favorability has plummeted. 

But not only is Alito mocking the outrage over what he’s already done, he sent a signal about what he’s prepared to do, railing against “hostility to religion” and saying, “ultimately, if we are going to win the battle to protect religious freedom in an increasingly secular society, we will need more than positive law.”

Looking at those comments, legal analyst Chris Geidner tweeted, “When Sam Alito says something like this, that's a sign that the fundamental ways the Supreme Court majority has already eviscerated the Establishment Clause in favor of the Free Exercise Clause are just the first steps he wants the court to take.”

What Alito is telling us with his mockery, his arrogance, his absolute lack of pretense that he’s equally weighing free exercise of religion with other rights, is that he doesn’t care. He’s here as a political figure and he’s going to shape the country’s laws to fit his political preferences as long as he has that power. Senate Democrats should take this as a dare, and they should step up with the reforms the nation’s voters are already embracing.

RELATED STORY: Supreme Court favorables hit new lows after hitting new lows

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The Biden administration announced a series of solar initiatives this week meant to incentivize more Americans who are looking to make the switch to renewables or are interested in entering the solar industry. The administration reiterated its support of a Department of Energy program aimed at bringing “together employers, training providers, and labor unions to support pathways to the solar industry to recruit, train, and retain an inclusive workforce,” according to an agency press release. Already, $10 million has been earmarked from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for this program.

Separate funding is also being dedicated to supporting equitable community solar projects, with prizes of $10,000 being awarded to groups with projects that meet metrics like providing meaningful benefit to low- to moderate-income households that include community ownership, among other criteria. Applications are open for the Sunny Awards for Equitable Community Solar, and an informational webinar is scheduled for Aug. 18. Though solar adoption has significantly increased over the past two decades, it is still prohibitively expensive for many Americans to opt into using solar for power generation. A ConsumerAffairs poll found cost to be the top reason that many choose not to take the solar plunge.

One of the most exciting developments is the Biden administration’s rolling out of a community solar subscription program that benefits those who live in subsidized housing or receive federal assistance. The program allows residents in subsidized households to receive the benefits of community solar without their energy credits factoring against their income. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program—also rolled out this week—provides assistance for households receiving federal assistance by providing assistance for energy bills and even funding projects to boost a home’s energy efficiency. Already, several states and Washington, D.C., are signed up for the pilot program, including Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York.

Along with the promises of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes providing tax credits for heat pumps and solar panels, those in the renewable industry are praising the direction the White House is taking to address a renewable transition as it continues to work toward its net-zero goals. “The Inflation Reduction Act makes unprecedented investments in clean energy deployment and manufacturing and will cement certainty for an industry that produces, clean, reliable, affordable energy made right here at home,” the coalition Local Solar For All said in a statement. Incentives like these make a meaningful difference in solar adoption, too. According to a study from the Department of Energy, “solar could account for as much as 40%” of the nation’s electricity by 2035.”

Last month, a tiny town in North Carolina hired a Black woman to manage their city. The celebration of diversity quickly waned; after just two weeks, the police force walked off the job en mass, including all four full-time officers, two town clerks, and the police chief—all of whom are white.

Kenly, population 1,800, is a community that is neither majority Black nor majority white. According to Data USA, the city is made up of 36.1% Black residents and 35.7% white residents. The remainder are white (Hispanic), other (Hispanic), and multiracial (Hispanic).

So when Justine Jones began her role as city manager in June, it wasn’t to diversify the local government. She was approved by the city council after an exhaustive nationwide search. She was chosen because she’d “dedicated her career to public service for over the last 16 years” in “progressively responsible positions with local governments” in multiple states, according to a press release sent after she was hired.

RELATED STORY: Disenfranchisement alive in Georgia after GOP-backed bill removes 75% of Atlanta's ballot drop boxes

Although the police force’s resignation letters claim a “hostile” workplace, none cite examples or name Jones—except one.

Only former Chief of Police Josh Gibson called Jones out by name. He recently made a Facebook post private in which he commented that Jones “has created an environment I do not feel we can perform our duties and services to the community.”

CBS-17 in Kenly reports that the town council has asked the town attorney to begin “thorough investigations beginning next week to determine the facts and circumstances relating to the resignations and the allegations of a hostile work environment.”

Kenly resident Brittney Hinnant told CNN that force’s resignation is obviously a “race issue.” She says the entire force is white, and there have been complaints of police harassment of Black residents in the town.

“I feel like they don’t want a Black woman over top of them, basically managing them or telling them what to do,” Hinnant said.

To another longtime Kenly resident, Cynthia Kirby, it’s obvious this is about the fact that Jones is Black and the officers are white.

“They don’t want to be led by anybody Black; that’s Kenly. They’re always harassing Black people. It’s racial. … I hope this doesn’t end in her quitting, because that’s not right. You can’t judge anybody because they make you do your job,” Kirby told The News & Observer.  

A study of 39,000 video gamers has found "little to no evidence" time spent playing affects their wellbeing. From a report: The average player would have to play for 10 hours more than usual per day to notice any difference, it found. And the reasons for playing were far more likely to have an impact. Well-being was measured by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration. The results contradict a 2020 study. Conducted by the same department at the Oxford Internet Institute -- but with a much smaller group of players -- the 2020 study had suggested that those who played for longer were happier. "Common sense says if you have more free time to play video games, you're probably a happier person," said Prof Andrew Przybylski, who worked on both studies. "But contrary to what we might think about games being good or bad for us, we found [in this latest study] pretty conclusive evidence that how much you play doesn't really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in well-being. "If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they had to, they tended to feel better."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There won't be any real political price for playing some serious political hardball.

U.S border agents in June lied about an asylum-seeker on an official interview form, eventually leading to the migrant’s deportation back to danger in El Salvador. The Dallas Morning News reports that agents had listed that Benjamin was coming to the U.S. to look for work, when in reality, he and his family had fled gang threats in their home country. But border agents lied.

So how do we know that border agents lied? Well, Benjamin is only two-years-old. Not 22, not 42, but 2. Border agents falsely claimed in the paperwork that Benjamin said he was coming to the U.S. “[t]o seek employment,” and that his intended destination was “Dallas, Texas.” Smart kid. 

Following this lie, Benjamin and his family—mom Roxana and an 8-year-old sister—were deported back under the rapid process that bypasses immigration court and doesn’t allow appeal. 

RELATED STORY: Remember when officials claimed they couldn't process asylum-seekers due to capacity? That was a lie

“They never interviewed me. Never,” Roxana told The Dallas Morning News from El Salvador. “They didn’t give us a chance to explain our case. I’m afraid. They could hurt my kids.”

Let’s not pretend this was an error. Human Rights First’s Anwen Hughes told The Dallas Morning News that the same thing happened to another child, a three-year-old boy. He supposedly also told immigration officials that he was coming to the U.S. to seek work, “which, you know, isn’t high on the order of priorities of most 3-year-olds I know,” Hughes said. A four-year-old supposedly offered a similar response, a 2016 report said.

Under the expedited removal process, “even low-level” officers can “order the deportation of some non-U.S. citizens without any of the due-process protections granted to most other people—such as the right to an attorney and to a hearing before a judge,” American Immigration Council said. “Expedited removal is literally set up in such a way that it really shoves people through the process with very little recourse,” Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Mich González told The Dallas Morning News.

The family’s attorney, Paul Zoltan, is pushing for them to be returned to the U.S. for a legitimate credible fear interview, which he believes they can pass. Provided, you know, that the mother is allowed to give actual responses. This sort of shit is exactly why national findings recently revealed that most voters don’t trust border agents. ”Only 26% report ‘a great deal’ or ‘a lot’ of trust that border agents will respect the constitutional rights of everyone,” the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, and the Southern Border Communities Coalition polling said.

In just one example of the routine lies we see from this taxpayer-funded border agency, court litigation revealed that agents had lied when they claimed in 2018 that the reason they were illegally turning away asylum-seekers at official ports of entry was that they had no processing space. They lied. Data obtained through the lawsuit revealed that border officers “routinely turned back” asylum-seekers even as enough space to process hundreds sat empty.

Then earlier this year, a Department of Homeland Security inspector general report confirmed that border agents also lied when they claimed they had been checking in a teenager who died while in U.S. custody in May 2019. The investigation found “that had not actually occurred.” Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez, an Indigenous child from Guatemala, died alone on the cement floor of a Border Patrol cell. While agents committed a criminal act by falsifying documents, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas never prosecuted anyone.

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Border agents lied about boy's in-custody death. We still don't know if anyone was held accountable

Victims' families urge new look into Border Patrol abuses: 'They covered up what happened'

Supreme Court's right-wing justices side with abusive border agents

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Stadia hasn't been as successful as the Internet super-giant wanted it to be. While the game streaming service did end up getting its foot in the door for a little while, it hasn't been making waves since its release, and many have theorized that Google would end up scuttling the service entirely in the relatively near future. This idea isn't without precedent, either, as Google is known to shut down underperforming services in surprisingly short order, and Google Stadia, in particular, isn't doing all that well in the grand scheme of things. The latest rumors suggest that the plans to shut down Stadia may be further along than some would think, with Google aiming to close it down before the end of 2022. Google Stadia was originally announced in 2019, and while it was presented as the next big thing for gaming, it barely made a splash in the end. According to Twitter account Killed by Google, which keeps track of all the services that Google closes down, it might not be long before Stadia's time is up. It's a "he said, she said" situation, to be fair, but according to the account holder's sources, Google may shut down Stadia "by the end of summer." The source also claims that there'd be no license transfer of any sort, which means that any purchases made on Stadia would effectively be nullified as the service closes down.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Senate Republicans responded to news that Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were going forward on a reconciliation bill addressing climate change and some health care costs by attacking U.S. military veterans suffering from toxic exposure, blocking the final passage of legislation that had overwhelmingly sailed through the chamber just a couple of weeks ago.

Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson wrote Thursday that vindictive Republicans are also planning to pull support for other measures they’d previously indicated were getting a thumbs-up. During a press call that same day, immigrant rights advocates and their allies worried about what Republicans might try to put into the package in order to derail it, including amendments that would continue Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum Title 42 policy indefinitely.

RELATED STORY: Senate Democrats announce deal with Manchin, and Republicans take out their anger on veterans

“On behalf of the #WelcomeWithDignity campaign, I urge the Senate to reject any amendments that would harm immigrant communities or asylum-seekers,” said Melina Roche, #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign Manager. “Addressing climate change, health care, taxes, and inflation is important and desperately needed progress—that’s why the Senate must not set up the budget reconciliation bill to fail by adding in destructive anti-immigrant amendments.” 

Miller’s debunked Title 42 policy, a public health order that in reality has used the pandemic as an excuse to violate the U.S. asylum rights of vulnerable people, has frankly had enough help from Democrats as is. Despite Democrats controlling the U.S. House by a much wider margin than the U.S. Senate, the House Appropriations Committee recently passed a GOP-led amendment that would continue Miller’s order. Republican Dan Newhouse’s anti-asylum amendment passed the committee via voice vote, putting no one on the record.

More than 200 organizations subsequently urged House leaders to ensure these anti-asylum amendments don’t get a floor vote. Following Senate Republicans’ attack on veterans as political payback for the passage of a bill that could meet some pressing challenges, these amendments continue to remain a strong threat.

“Like many of my colleagues, I am disappointed and frustrated by the House Appropriations Committee’s inclusion of amendments which would prevent the CDC from ending the application of Title 42 to asylum seekers at the border—and I strongly oppose any effort to codify or prolong Title 42 border expulsions,” said Rep. Judy Chu, who was on the press call. “Rather, Congress should commit to finding a permanent humanitarian solution to ensure adults and families going through the immigration process are received with dignity.” 

“If the Senate adopts extremist amendments, like codifying Title 42, to the budget reconciliation bill, we will oppose its passage,” Roche continued. “For far too long, Title 42 has harmed countless migrants and people seeking protection, including those who are especially vulnerable such as Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ asylum-seekers. Furthermore, this policy has only benefitted nefarious actors seizing on the desperation of people fleeing for their lives.”  

The New York Times reported more than two years ago how Miller had already concocted the idea of using a public health crisis as a pretext to block asylum-seekers, even stooping to using the deaths of numerous migrant children in U.S. custody as a possible reason. But he repeatedly failed to get support from the other extremists in the previous administration. “That changed with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic,” the report said.

“Republicans blocked the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act—it got 55 votes, but the 42 votes against it prevailed—following the announcement of the reconciliation deal with Manchin,” Clawson continued. “There’s no doubt this was revenge: The bill had overwhelmingly passed the Senate in June, 84 to 14, with Wednesday’s vote being to make technical corrections after it passed the House.” Republicans have already been more than happy to punish immigrants, in fact lamenting when separated families were being reunited too quickly. Now they have even more incentive to push through their hateful agenda if it can possibly help derail Democrats’ plans.

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Groups warn GOP-pushed amendment passed by House committee could 'irreparably taint' asylum law

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Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade made many observers think he wanted to overturn other rights that Americans have become accustomed to. But the rest of the court may not be ready to follow Thomas quite that far.

Transcript

Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux: Overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning. At least, that’s what Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in his concurring opinion when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that there is no constitutional right to abortion. Thomas wrote that in the future, he wants the court to take a second look at some other landmark rulings that established fundamental rights.

Those rulings include Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 decision that gave Americans the right to obtain birth control; Lawrence v. Texas, the decision that struck down anti-sodomy laws; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that established a constitutional right to gay marriage. Thomas said that he thinks the reasoning underlying all these opinions is flawed in the same way Roe was — that the Constitution doesn’t address those rights and there’s little support in the American legal tradition for them.

If you’re a centrist or liberal, the idea that the court might be about to unravel lots of constitutional rights, not just abortion, might sound pretty scary. But although Thomas has become more powerful as the court has moved right, it’s worth remembering that he is consistently the most conservative justice on the court, including this term.

The people who will really determine where the court lands on these issues are the justices in the middle.

So, who are those justices? Every year we take a look at the ideology of the Supreme Court using the Martin-Quinn scores, a metric that looks at how the justices voted in a specific term. This year, Brett Kavanaugh is the median justice. But, honestly, he doesn’t look that different from Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Neil Gorsuch or Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Let’s be clear — these justices are not moderates. They’re very conservative. But they may have limits on how far to the right they’re willing to go.

Take Kavanaugh: He voted with the conservatives on all the big cases this term. But he also dropped a few clues about his stances on other issues.

For one thing, he said in his own concurring opinion in the case that overturned Roe that he doesn’t think the U.S. Constitution has anything to say about abortion. Which means, at least according to what he says right now, the Constitution also doesn’t prohibit abortion.

Kavanaugh also said that he thought the right to travel out of state for an abortion is protected by the Constitution. That’s also relevant because some state legislators who oppose abortion rights are already talking about passing laws to keep women from traveling for abortions.

How about the other justices who fall somewhere in the court’s ideological center?

We know Roberts isn’t a fan of overturning big, high-profile precedents. But we still don’t know much about Barrett since she’s been on the court for less than two years. She did vote with the majority 87 percent of the time in divided cases this term, which suggests she’s pretty close to Kavanaugh. Gorsuch, on the other hand, has been willing to flip to the liberal side on a few issues, and he’s generally more suspicious of government authority than the other Trump appointees are. But on social issues like abortion, he’s very consistently conservative.

The important thing to remember here, though, is that the direction of the court ultimately won’t be dictated by how far the most conservative justice wants to go. It will be shaped by what justices like Kavanaugh will do.

So the question is, does Kavanaugh, Barrett or Gorsuch want to overturn the right to birth control or same-sex marriage? They’ve all been evasive on these subjects in the past, but we might find out what they think soon enough.

As Kerry Eleveld reported last Friday, Steve Bannon has been found guilty on two charges of contempt of Congress and can now expect to spend some time in federal prison for his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on Jan. 6. However, Bannon is far from the only member of Donald Trump’s White House team who has failed to show up before the committee or provide requested documents. Most of those who have so far refused are likely to avoid paying any price for hiding information behind claims of “executive privilege.”

The Department of Justice may not be all that anxious to take up these contempt cases in the name of a House committee, but that doesn’t mean the department doesn’t want those Trump officials to testify. Those same figures are critical to the Department of Justice’s own investigation into the conspiracy behind events on Jan. 6, 2021. 

To clear the way for testimony from everyone up to and including Trump, the Department of Justice first has to clear the privilege issue off the board. Trump has made extensive use of the privilege card ever since entering the White House, and that certainly didn’t stop when he left. So far, the Justice Department has been careful to navigate around privilege issues in its interviews with former members of Team Trump, but for the investigation to get serious, that has to end.

As CNN reports, the Department of Justice is “confronting the privilege issue with care.” Attorney General Merrick Garland made a very welcome statement last week in which he finally made it clear that no one, including Trump, was clear of potential charges related to the attempted coup. But so far the department doesn’t seem to have pressed witnesses to provide what they consider to be privileged information, which in this case appears to be any direct communication with Trump. 

This is not how executive privilege is supposed to work. In past cases, claims of privilege have required just that: a claim from the White House asserting privilege over specific written or spoken communications. But throughout his time in Washington, Trump made extensive and expansive claims of privilege, not only refusing to cooperate in matters related to his two impeachments, but instructing officials to refuse to release even routine information. In almost all cases, White House officials refused to say that Trump was officially asserting privilege, and Trump refused to comment. There was just a broad claim of undefined privilege, which in some cases was extended to junior officials who never came close to talking with Trump. 

Such blanket claims of privilege leave the Department of Justice facing a dilemma when it comes to investigating the events of Jan. 6 and the other ways in which Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

There’s no doubt now that the Department of Justice is deep into an investigation of actions by many members of the White House, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, attorney John Eastman, and attorney Rudy Giuliani. In recent days, a federal grand jury has heard testimony from false electors who were encouraged to take part in Trump’s scheme, as well as Marc Short and Greg Jacob who were, respectively, chief of staff and lead counsel to Mike Pence. 

Trump’s efforts to extend privilege to new levels have already met with some defeats in court, most notably when he was forced to hand over a large tranche of documents that he had sought to protect at Mar-a-Lago and was required to release other documents held by the National Archives. But the broader case of exactly how much right Trump has to protect his conversations after he has left office remains unsettled law. 

There are good reasons to believe that the answer to how much privilege Trump now enjoys is none, and that practically every conversation that Trump had regarding Jan. 6, even those with his personal attorneys, would fail any reasonable test of privilege because these statements were directly related to a conspiracy to commit a serious crime. That would be completely in line with how courts ruled during Ken Starr’s prolonged investigation into the Clinton White House. 

But if the Department of Justice plans to cut through Trump’s privilege claims, it had better get cracking. A Department of Justice inquiry into a member of Clinton’s Cabinet took two years to obtain a final ruling. 

The Senate Republican temper tantrum over Democrats’ deal with Sen. Joe Manchin on a climate and health care reconciliation package won’t end with voting against a bill to help veterans suffering from toxic exposure. They’re also threatening to tank a marriage equality bill because they’re butthurt about an entirely different bill.

Sen. Susan Collins was the predictable messenger, feigning sorrow and disappointment over the Democrats’ move in announcing the reconciliation deal hours after the passage of a bipartisan computer chip manufacturing incentive bill and warning: “After we just had worked together successfully on gun safety legislation, on the CHIPs bill, it was a very unfortunate move that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are under way.”

Got that? Republicans wanted to pass the computer chip bill. They wanted to pass the bill dealing with veterans and toxic exposure—they’d even voted overwhelmingly for it just a few weeks ago. They miiiiight want to pass marriage equality, maybe, after an extended period of playing games. But if Democrats pass a completely unrelated bill, then Republicans will try to block the things that they would otherwise vote for. That’s the mentality.

RELATED STORY: Senate Democrats announce deal with Manchin, and Republicans take out their anger on veterans

It was never a sure thing that 10 Republicans would vote for marriage equality anyway. At least five Republican senators had said they would vote yes, but breaking the filibuster requires 10. Many Republicans were dodging the question of how they would vote by saying they wouldn’t commit one way or the other until a vote was scheduled, yet Democrats continued trying to lock down 10 Republicans before going to a vote.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, one of the Democrats leading the effort to pick up Republican votes, told NPR this week, “I think there's some uncertainty among my Republican colleagues as to whether the bill actually will get to the floor and receive a vote, and so that leads to some hesitance to publicly declare one's stance.”

And that’s why Democrats need to get the bill to the floor for a vote. Stop letting Republicans yank you around when they’re basically advertising that that’s what they’re doing. Either they support the bill or they don’t, and it’s time for them to be adults and own their position on this issue.

Marriage equality is not climate change is not computer chips is not the effect of toxic burn pits on veterans. These are all separate matters of importance to the nation, and it is the job of senators to consider each one and vote on whether they support the legislation. The marriages of a million people should not be held hostage to the ability to live and breathe, and to live on unflooded coasts.

But fine. That’s today’s Republican Party. Now it’s time for Senate Democrats to put Republicans on the spot and force them to show themselves. 

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GOP senators have a plan to avoid a marriage equality vote. Are Democrats really falling for it?

Biden, Democrats poised to finally pass several highly popular bills. Timing couldn't be better

There are still three outstanding questions.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is finally on board with Democrats’ sweeping budget reconciliation bill. But just because Democratic leadership and President Joe Biden have cleared their biggest hurdle, that doesn’t mean there aren’t others.

Last week, Manchin announced that he would support the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes significant climate, health care, and tax policy reforms. He was the most vocal holdout on Build Back Better, the previous incarnation of legislation addressing these issues, making his support especially significant.

“We reorganized the bill, if you will,” Manchin told CNN, of why he was backing the legislation now after previously balking because of the high inflation rate. “What we had before that, there were things in there that I considered ... to be inflammatory and I didn’t want that to happen.”

Despite Manchin’s backing, there are still outstanding issues that could affect the provisions in the bill or jeopardize its chances of passing altogether. Ensuring that sufficient Democrats sign on is a major concern in both the House and the Senate. And the narrow time frame that lawmakers have to pass the bill before recess also poses a challenge.

Below are three big questions that the bill’s future hinges on.

1) Will Sen. Kyrsten Sinema support it?

Besides Manchin, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) was the other big holdout in the Senate on Build Back Better, and she hasn’t yet said where she stands on the Inflation Reduction Act.

Previously, she opposed closing the carried interest tax loophole — a key provision of the Inflation Reduction Act — and it’s possible that could be a sticking point again.

Closing the loophole would force money managers to pay the same tax rate on their compensation as other professions do. Currently, their income can be taxed at a lower rate of up to 23.8 percent, while income is typically taxed at up to 37 percent. Eliminating the loophole has been a central objective of Manchin’s. And this new proposal is also a critical part of the way the bill decreases the deficit, something else Manchin is very concerned with. If Sinema’s position is unchanged, that would put her in direct opposition with Manchin.

Sinema spokesperson Hannah Hurley told Bloomberg last week that the senator was still reviewing the bill and would wait to see what emerged from the Senate parliamentarian’s review. Manchin, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he’s interested in keeping the carried interest provision in the bill.

Although Sinema is an important swing vote, Manchin said he and Schumer didn’t include her in the latest round of negotiations because the West Virginia senator wasn’t sure these talks would result in a deal. Manchin has said, however, that the concerns she had about Build Back Better played a central role in the final outcome.

“She has a tremendous, tremendous input in this piece of legislation,” Manchin said in an NBC News interview Sunday. “She basically insisted no tax increases, [we’ve] done that. And she was very, very adamant about that, I ... agree with her.”

Previously, increases to corporate and individual tax rates were stripped from the House’s Build Back Better bill because of Sinema’s opposition.

2) What about House moderates?

Democratic House moderates are another contingent that might be disappointed by this iteration of the bill.

Previously, several moderate members including Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) called for the full state and local tax (SALT) deduction — which is currently capped at $10,000 — to be added back into the legislation. That provision was so important to certain lawmakers that they adopted the mantra “No SALT, No Deal.” In the past, there had been no cap on this deduction, meaning people could pay lower federal income taxes since they were able to subtract their larger state and local taxes from their federal bill.

The entitlement primarily benefited homeowners and other, usually more affluent, Americans with higher state and local tax burdens, which led many Democrats to oppose its return. These Democrats argued it was essentially a tax break for the rich. As Manchin noted in a statement on Wednesday, he also opposes the inclusion of this provision and it is not included in the bill as is.

On Thursday, some members who previously pushed for the SALT deduction, including Reps. Tom Suozzi and Tom Malinowski, signaled that they would still support the legislation despite this omission. Other moderates — like Gottheimer — have yet to take an explicit stance.

The vast majority of moderates’ support is ultimately critical to the bill’s passage in the House, where Democrats have only a slim majority. After recess, the party will likely have a margin of only three votes in the House.

Progressives, meanwhile, have broadly sounded bullish on the bill even though it’s much narrower than what Democrats had originally hoped to pass. “If we can get it done, and I believe we can, I believe that there’s a real deal here,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a CNN interview on Thursday.

3) Could the vote slip again?

The last uncertainty plaguing the bill is simply timing. Because the Senate’s annual summer recess is set to begin on August 8, that leaves just a week for Democrats to pass the bill before they head out.

That’s not a lot of time, and it’s further complicated by a recent surge in Covid-19 cases in Congress, which has meant members can’t be at the Capitol in person to cast their votes.

In the last week, multiple lawmakers have tested positive for Covid-19, including Manchin and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who announced his result on Thursday. Durbin will likely be back on the Hill in time to vote for this legislation, but it’s possible other lawmakers could test positive, too.

That’s a problem for Democrats because they need every vote from their 50-person caucus, plus Vice President Kamala Harris’s vote, in order to hit the simple majority threshold needed to approve a bill via budget reconciliation. Because no Republicans are expected to support this legislation, the entire caucus needs to be present in person.

The reconciliation process also presents another issue. Between now and the vote, Democrats have to wait for the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling, which will determine whether the provisions in the bill are sufficiently related to taxing and spending to be considered as part of budget reconciliation. According to Bloomberg, that review is expected to take into this week given that the bill is over 700 pages. If they fail to get the parliamentarian’s approval on certain measures, Democrats will have to tweak their bill and potentially remove some provisions. At that point, they can move the bill to the floor, but they’ll also have to hold a lengthy process known as a “vote-a-rama,” when senators will be able to submit amendments.

Because of how long both those steps are poised to take, Democrats could be looking at a final vote on the bill this weekend — or later. Any delays would also affect the timing of a House vote, which will probably happen in August if things go according to plan this week.

Update, August 1, 11:20 am: This story has been updated to include new comments from Sen. Joe Manchin about the Inflation Reduction Act.

By David Badash Herschel Walker, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, has drawn tremendous criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike, as the former NFL star hides from debates after hiding three of his four children. Walker is being scrutinized as Fox News tries to prop him up, after The Daily Beast recently revealed he has three other children that he has all but never publicly acknowledged. Christian Walker, who does not identify as gay but says he is attracted to men, is the only Walker child most Americans know about. On Wed…

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To this day, it remains utterly gobsmacking that Donald Trump got even one vote for president of the United States, much less tens of millions. He had no relevant experience in politics or, from the looks of it, business. And as humans go, he was a pretty below-average tapeworm.

And yet, somehow, the wheel of cosmically unlikely events slid right past “Zombie Gandhi gnaws your nips off” and landed squarely on “Donald Trump is president.” It was like creating a profile on Tinder with a photo of Martin Shkreli’s taint and the headline “Trust Me, You WILL Get Gonorrhea,” and suddenly getting hundreds of fervent marriage proposals.

But one guy always believed in our first Claymation president’s potential—so much so that he bet big on it (twice) before Joe Biden ultimately transformed both puppet and puppeteer into colossal losers. And that wacky fool is none other than Vladimir Putin.

Putin and his cronies got all they bargained for from Trump—and more. But with the Russian army currently doing a spot-on impression of a drunk Disney World Goofy with a bumblebee loose in his costume, Putin’s filthy mouthpieces are pining for the good old days.

In a new dispatch from the phantasmagorical world of Russian state TV, Russia media monitor Julia Davis observes that Putin’s peeps have rarely been so frothy in their fervor for the former guy.

Gee, it’s almost as if one of our staunchest geopolitical foes wants the biggest fuckup on the planet to lead our country again for some reason. The Daily Beast:

Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, explained why he considered Trump’s presidency to have been particularly useful to Russia: “From my point of view, Trump was engaged in a very positive endeavor: He was destroying the leadership of the United States in the world. [emphasis added] He questioned the very structure of global relationships built by his predecessors, along with their partners and allies. … He wanted to turn those into commercial relationships and Europe didn’t like it at all.” 

Gee, I sure hope someone at the Democratic National Committee is archiving these shockingly frank admissions—because that one’s a doozy. Want a world where the U.S. withdraws from its security obligations in Europe and elsewhere, leaving a yawning vacuum for venal autocrats to fill? Then Trump’s your guy, goddammit!

Sidorov opined that “a total internal breakdown,” in the United States was needed to overcome an otherwise incredibly strong system of government. [Russian state TV host Vladimir] Solovyov expressed hope that Trump was exactly the kind of person who could deliver such a shock to the nation: “When a person rolls in like an elephant in a china shop—like Trump—he tears down and aggravates the situation… He consolidates the opponents and supporters, prompting a confrontation.” 

Military expert Alexander Artamonov concluded: “The worse, the better. It’s beneficial for us… We’ll put an end to the existence of the old world and start a new era, a new phase—headed by Russia, in my opinion.” Concurring, Solovyov recited a partial verse from Alexander Blok’s poem, “The Twelve,” ominously predicting: “We’ll set the world on fire.”

Want more chaos, war, global tumult, and an ascendant autocracy on the doorstep of the free world? Then Donald Trump’s your guy! 

As Solovyov giddily noted at one point during the discussion: “[Trump] said, ‘I don’t need NATO, I won’t rush to your defense if you don’t pay enough.’”

So there you have it. More evidence that Putin is waiting for weaker (i.e., Republican) leaders to retake the levers of government. If that happens, he might actually win the bet he placed back in February, when he likely figured it was only a matter of time before the West tired of the downsides of sanctions and welcomed these brutal butchers back into the global community with open arms.

Oh, and in case you needed more convincing, consider this quote from Solovyov about Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz: “Simply put, those are our guys.”

Yeah, Russian media lies a lot, but sometimes the truth slips out. The question is, what will American voters do about it?

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, 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.

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Michigan’s current laws against discrimination based on sex includes a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation, a ruling that effectively stops businesses from denying services or employment opportunities to the gay community. The 5-2 decision written by Republican-nominated Justice Elizabeth Clement found that discrimination based on sexual orientation involves bias based on sex because the individual’s sexual orientation is “generally determined by reference to their own sex.” “For example, attraction to females in a fel…

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More than 780,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine will be made available Friday, as the Biden administration tries to stay ahead of a growing outbreak.

The new doses, which come amid widespread complaints over access to treatments and vaccines, bring the total number secured so far to 1.1 million — including more than 330,000 that have already shipped to states and cities.

The announcement is the administration's latest response to the unusual outbreak in the U.S., which, since late May, has recorded more than 4,600 infections, up from around 1,500 two weeks ago. More than 20,000 cases have been reported worldwide.

“Every American should pay attention on monkeypox,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters during a call Thursday. “It is contagious, it is painful and it can be dangerous.”

But Becerra said he is not ready to declare a public health emergency, which would give the government a host of new authorities.

“We continue to monitor the response,” he said. “We will weigh any decision based on the response.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is set to make monkeypox a nationally notifiable condition, released new demographic data, showing 99 percent of cases are in people assigned male at birth, and the majority of those reported having sex with men. Of the cases that included race and ethnicity data, 37 percent were in non-Hispanic white people, 31 percent among Hispanic or Latino people, 27 percent among non-Hispanic Black or African American people and 4 percent among Asian people.

The secretary said it was not inevitable that monkeypox would become endemic in the United States even as officials expect the outbreak could expand beyond men who have sex with men.

“We cannot let this get out of control,” Becerra said. “Everybody’s got to do their part.”

Many more Jynneos shots, a newer generation of a smallpox vaccine in low supply globally, are on the way, with the U.S. ordering 5.5 million additional doses to be filled and finished from existing bulk material. By May 2023, the U.S. expects to have nearly 7 million doses.

It’s not yet known how many people in the U.S. have gotten one of the shots.

The government will also have the option of ordering more than 11 million more doses of the vaccine — saying they hope to do so in the future. If doses aren’t used, they will be added to the smallpox preparedness program, Dawn O’Connell, who leads the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, told reporters Thursday.

Though the U.S. has access to more vaccines than any other country, cities and states have not had enough to keep up with demand. It also has a large stock of an older vaccine, ACAM2000, which can have more severe side effects and is not widely used for monkeypox in the U.S.

There are about 16 million doses of the Jynneos vaccine currently available globally, the World Health Organization said, urging countries to share supplies.

Tecovirimat, the antiviral used to treat the virus, is also part of the U.S. arsenal. Even with over 1 million doses on hand, though, the drug has been difficult for providers to prescribe, leading the FDA to update its policies for usage.

To date, fewer than 10,000 people have received the treatment.

Testing for the virus has also been boosted, with a capacity of over 60,000 tests per week. The expanded testing — along with continued spread — means case counts are expected to continue rising, Becerra said.

“While this is a tremendous boost to vaccine availability, we know that more needs to be done,” O’Connell said.

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The climate act is also a health care act (and it does a few things on taxes, too).

It turns out that Democrats’ agenda in Congress didn’t die last December after all. In fact, President Joe Biden signed much of it into law Tuesday.

A surprise deal, the Inflation Reduction Act announced in July by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), brought Democrats’ policy goals back to life. The law accomplishes only a fraction of the grand dreams Democrats had when Biden took office in 2021. But it still does quite a lot.

Notably, the Inflation Reduction Act contains historic provisions to tackle climate change and takes steps toward fulfilling a longtime Democratic policy goal: letting Medicare negotiate the prices of some prescription drugs. Together with the infrastructure package Democrats passed in November, the IRA marks the achievement of a significant portion of Biden’s agenda.

While it’s unlikely to noticeably reduce inflation, at least in the short term, the legislation will have concrete effects: It could affect what kind of car you buy and how you heat your home. It will prevent big price increases this year for some people who purchase individual health insurance. And if you aren’t paying your taxes, there’s a better chance that the IRS will find out.

Here’s what’s in the law and what it would mean for American life in the coming years.

The biggest effort to tackle climate change — ever

The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest thing the US has ever done to tackle climate change, and climate makes up the largest share of its spending: nearly $370 billion.

That’s smaller than the House version from last fall, and a fraction of what Biden originally envisioned for climate action. Senate Democrats claim these investments will be enough to cut climate pollution by roughly 40 percent. (That’s slightly less dramatic than it sounds; the decrease is compared to 2005 levels, when emissions peaked. Even without new policy, the US still would have been on track to cut 20 percent of emissions by 2030.)

The policies overall aim to push American consumers and industry away from reliance on fossil fuels. The biggest share of the funding goes to tax credits and rebates for a host of renewable technologies — solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles. It includes incentives for companies to manufacture more of that technology in the United States. The law will also put funding into energy efficiency at industrial sites that can help lower the sector’s hefty carbon footprint, while dedicating some funds to forest and coastal restoration.

The IRA also breaks new ground on other problematic areas of the climate crisis. It sets the first methane fee that penalizes fossil fuel companies for excess emissions of the especially powerful climate pollutant. Another substantial part of the funding helps disadvantaged communities with monitoring and cleaning up pollution, and builds their resilience to climate impacts.

Beyond cutting climate pollution, the clean energy investments could also make a dent in inflation. According to Robbie Orvis, senior director at Energy Innovation, rising energy prices have driven roughly a third of the 9 percent rise in the overall Consumer Price Index this past year. By helping Americans become less reliant on fossil fuels, the spending helps ease the global oil crunch and cut consumer bills.

Helping people afford health insurance for longer

The climate parts of the IRA have gotten the most attention. But it also includes some significant steps on health care, including shoring up an expansion to the Affordable Care Act.

One way Obamacare expanded health care coverage was by creating marketplaces for people to purchase insurance and offering federal subsidies to help low- and middle-income households afford it. Households making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line — about $106,000 for a family of four — could get federal help to pay their premiums. After that, they were on their own.

But in 2021, Congress eliminated those caps, instead saying that no household should have to pay more than 8.5 percent of their income for health insurance. The change had the biggest effect on people making between 400 and 600 percent of the federal poverty line (for the same household of four, that would be up to $159,000 per year). As Vox’s Dylan Scott previously reported, the changes also enabled roughly 7 million people to qualify for free health insurance under the ACA.

Those policies, however, were set to sunset by the end of this year, leaving millions of people to face much higher health care expenses moving forward. The Inflation Reduction Act extends these subsidies for three years through the end of 2025, ensuring that people won’t face that surge for a while yet. That extension is expected to cost $64 billion, according to a projection from the Congressional Budget Office.

Negotiating prescription drug prices

For years, Democrats have told voters that they will take on policies that reduce the costs of prescription drugs, only to be blocked by Republicans and fall short. This law allows them to finally fulfill that campaign promise by enabling Medicare to negotiate on prescription drugs — a major change that could lead to significant cost reductions for a small subset of drugs.

As outlined in the IRA, Medicare will be able to negotiate on a handful of drugs, with those new prices taking effect in 2026. In 2026, Medicare will only be able to address costs for 10 drugs; over time, that will increase to 20 drugs. The drugs in question will be determined based on a slew of criteria, including how expensive they are.

These negotiations are poised to save Medicare a lot of money, since the prices are currently set by manufacturers.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, whose approval was needed for Democrats to move forward with the reconciliation process, signed off on the Medicare portion of the bill, but nixed a provision that would have lowered prescription costs for Americans on private insurance.

Because of that decision, pharmaceutical companies will be required to issue rebates if they try to raise the price of a drug at a rate higher than inflation. But that requirement only applies to drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, and not those for people who are currently covered by private insurance.

The parliamentarian also struck another provision that would cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month for those with private insurance. Democrats were able to keep an insulin cap of $35 a month for those covered by Medicare.

More money for the IRS

Actually raising taxes can be hard, politically. So Democrats are, in part, taking a different approach: getting people to pay more of the taxes they already owe. The Inflation Reduction Act agreement increases funding for the IRS so that it can up enforcement and go after unpaid taxes. Senate Democrats, drawing from Congressional Budget Office numbers, estimate that, by investing $80 billion in the IRS over a decade, it will collect $203 billion. This was also part of a proposal put out by the Biden administration in 2021.

The IRS estimated that from 2011 to 2013, the “tax gap” — meaning the difference between what people pay in taxes and what they owe in taxes — amounted to $441 billion each year, or around 16 percent of total tax liability those years.

One 2019 paper by Natasha Sarin, now at the Treasury Department, and economist Larry Summers put the tax gap at $7.5 trillion from 2020 to 2029, with most of that figure linked to the wealthy. They calculated that underreporting was five times higher among people making more than $10 million annually than for those making under $200,000. Senate Democrats say that none of the funds directed to the IRS will be intended to increase taxes on anyone making under $400,000.

Closing a loophole to make corporations pay more taxes

The agreement also includes a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations with profits over $1 billion. Senate Democrats note that while the current corporate tax rate is 21 percent, dozens of major companies, including AT&T, Amazon, and ExxonMobil, pay much less than that. Originally, the provision was expected to raise $313 billion, though new carveouts were added to win Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-AZ) vote, which give manufacturers and private equity firms more leeway when it comes to the new minimum tax rate. Those changes are likely to reduce the revenue this measure will bring in.

There is also a 1 percent excise tax on corporations’ stock buybacks, which are currently not subject to any taxes at all. That excise tax is estimated to raise roughly $73 billion in revenue.

Update, August 16, 4:02 pm: This story was originally published July 28, 2022, and has been updated to reflect new information, most recently that President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act.

Ron DeSantis wants to be president so badly he can taste it, and that means he has to put immigrant-bashing first, Florida second. It doesn’t matter if the migrants he’s attacking are kids. Ron is still gonna bash them, and has, last year issuing an “emergency” executive order blocking the license renewals of federally funded facilities where asylum-seeking children are held until they can be reunited with a sponsor.

More recently, Mr. Refuses-To-Condemn-Nazis has been touting a series of local law enforcement actions from June that he claims “were able to recover these illegal aliens and enough fentanyl to kill off 2,000 people in the state of Florida,” Miami Herald reported. The action may have resulted in the seizure of the drugs, but implying that migrants had anything to do with the drugs is complete bullshit. 

“What DeSantis did not mention is that the vast majority of the 22 arrests were not related to immigration but rather tied to men and women who live in the country legally,” the report said.

RELATED STORY: In latest xenophobic stunt, Ron DeSantis tries to gin up controversy over routine flights

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“DeSantis also implied that undocumented migrants had been arrested on drug-related crimes, when none were, according to arrest records provided by the Florida Highway Patrol and two of the four sheriff’s offices that participated in the state’s effort,” Miami Herald continued. The arrests of seven undocumented immigrants stemmed from traffic violations, including driving too slowly. Floridians must feel safer already.

In an absolute shock to no one, DeSantis failed to obsess over the arrests of the actual people caught with fentanyl, and that’s simply because they weren’t undocumented immigrants. Miami Herald reported that DeSantis “emphasized” details about one migrant who, like many other migrants, had paid a smuggler thousands of dollars to help him enter the country without permission. Okay. But DeSantis did not similarly emphasize details about the drug-related arrests, including one person who was wanted on domestic battery charges. Ron DeSantis has an agenda, and he’s sticking to it. 

Last month, we noted how Republicans were likely to ignore Customs and Border Protection data showing it’s overwhelmingly U.S. citizens who have been caught with drugs at the southern border.“Out of the 42 incidents in which a person's nationality was reported, 33 (79%) involved US citizens. Just 3 incidents involved a smuggler without legal status,” American Immigration Council Policy Director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick shared in a Twitter thread.  “Only TWO publicly-reported seizures were linked to people crossing between ports of entry,” he wrote in another tweet.

“The data is of course incomplete, because CBP doesn’t publish details on every single seizure,” he continued. “But it does back up what the less detailed but more complete monthly statistics show; there is no measurable link between migrants and fentanyl smuggling.” That certainly isn’t stopping Ron DeSantis anyway, who has been just as quiet about the neo-Nazis who paraded around Tampa in his support earlier this month.

“It has been two days now with not a word from him about this incident or the fact that these Nazis were holding signs in support of him,” activist and journalist Thomas Kennedy wrote at Latino Rebels on July 26. “I have tried reaching out to his communications team and his chief propagandist, otherwise known as his press secretary, Christina Pushaw, for comment, but only received radio silence.” Pushaw earlier this year attacked the local archbishop in defending DeSantis’ anti-child executive order. She’s also been instrumental in re-popularizing the “groomer” slur against LGBTQ people.

Kennedy, who has been repeatedly censored by the thin-skinned governor, said “[t]his isn’t the first time that DeSantis has failed to condemn Nazi demonstrations in Florida. Back in February, Nazis terrorized the otherwise friendly and liberal city of Orlando by staging violent rallies and displaying hateful messages on banners hung from an overpass.” Pushaw lied that they were really Democratic operatives. “DeSantis had already failed to clearly condemn Nazi demonstrators in the past,” Kennedy wrote. “Unfortunately, he got a second opportunity—and he failed again.” 

While Republicans try to overturn elections and make it harder to vote, volunteer to help save democracy by encouraging people to cast their ballots. Click here to view hundreds of local and national Get Out the Vote opportunities on the Daily Kos Mobilize feed, and sign up to volunteer on a national campaign or one near you.

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It’s been a hard few years for people worried about voting rights in America. Republican-controlled states are imposing a raft of new restrictions. A divided Congress has failed to pass any legislation in response. And the Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case that could give state legislatures unchecked power over election rules.

But perhaps a largely forgotten provision of the Constitution offers a solution to safeguard American democracy. Created amid some of the country’s most violent clashes over voting rights, Section 2 of the 14th Amendment provides a harsh penalty for any state where the right to vote is denied “or in any way abridged.”

A state that crosses the line would lose a percentage of its seats in the House of Representatives in proportion to how many voters it disenfranchises. If a state abridges voting rights for, say, 10 percent of its eligible voters, that state would lose 10 percent of its representatives — and with fewer House seats, it would get fewer votes in the Electoral College, too.

Under the so-called penalty clause, it doesn’t matter how a state abridges the right to vote, or even why. The framers of the constitutional amendment worried that they would not be able to predict all the creative ways that states would find to disenfranchise Black voters. They designed the clause so that they wouldn’t have to. “No matter what may be the ground of exclusion,” Sen. Jacob Howard, a Republican from Michigan, explained in 1866, “whether a want of education, a want of property, a want of color, or a want of anything else, it is sufficient that the person is excluded from the category of voters, and the State loses representation in proportion.”

That approach could come in handy for discouraging states from imposing more limits on voting, as the country witnesses what Adam Lioz, senior policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, calls “the greatest assault on voting rights since Jim Crow.”

There’s just one problem: The penalty clause isn’t being enforced — and never has been.

One man is now waging a legal campaign to change that. It’s a longshot, but if he succeeds, it could serve as a sharp deterrent against voting rights restrictions and even reshape the entire electoral map. At minimum, the push highlights why such language was included in the Constitution in the first place.

Jared Pettinato thinks he’s finally figured out how to make the penalty clause come to life: Sue the Census Bureau.

Pettinato is a lawyer, though election law isn’t his specialty by trade. He worked at the Department of Justice for nine years with a focus on environmental issues, leaving soon after the 2016 election. (“The people of the United States decided on a different boss for me, and I didn’t really want to work for that boss,” he says.)

The 43-year-old Montana native got the idea for the lawsuit after listening to a podcast hosted by the libertarian group Institute for Justice. A mention of the penalty clause piqued his interest, and he started reading up on it. He says he’s been aided by his expertise in administrative law from his time at the Justice Department along with an undergraduate degree in math.

“I could see how to put all these pieces together,” Pettinato says. “My background doing the environmental law work gives me a different perspective than most of your voting rights attorneys.”

So he filed a lawsuit late last year against the Census Bureau, which is responsible for deciding how many House seats each state receives after the census is completed every decade. The suit argues that the Census Bureau’s job of apportioning seats also requires it to apply the penalty clause, and that it already has the information it needs to figure out how many people in each state have experienced harm to their voting rights.

Pettinato filed the lawsuit in D.C. federal court on behalf of a nonprofit he runs, Citizens for Constitutional Integrity. It is something of a labor of love for him. There is no big law firm pitching in to provide resources and expertise. None of the states that might stand to gain from penalty clause enforcement has come to his aid. Voting rights activists aren’t focused on the challenge. Pettinato is working on contingency, paying the bills through work on other cases. “We’re scraping together enough to pay the filing fees,” he says.

Still, in the penalty clause’s long history of non-enforcement, Pettinato’s lawsuit might stand the best chance yet to finally make the provision a reality.

“I think it’s more likely than any previous lawsuit I’m aware of to succeed in at least shifting one congressional seat,” says Thomas Berry, a research fellow at the Cato Institute who has written about the clause.

The suit points to Wisconsin, where a law passed in 2011 requires voters to present a photo ID at their polling place but limits what kinds of ID are acceptable. A federal judge concluded that the law disenfranchised 300,000 registered voters, or 9 percent of the state’s total, because they lacked a qualifying ID. (The judge’s legal conclusion was later overturned, but the appeals court said it accepted his factual finding.) The complaint holds Wisconsin up as an easy example for the Census Bureau to apply: Under the penalty clause, the state should lose 9 percent of its representatives, which rounds to one seat in the House. That seat would shift to another state.

Analysis by a data scientist cited in the lawsuit found that seven states — Arizona, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia — would gain at least one seat each if the Census Bureau fully applied the penalty.

The lawsuit is still in its early stages. The government filed a motion to have it dismissed, and Pettinato filed a motion urging the court to decide for him on the merits. Earlier this month, the court scheduled oral argument on the motions, but not until December. That means the case won’t be decided before November’s midterm elections, but the court is likely to rule by 2024. Attorneys for the Census Bureau declined to comment.

If the claim succeeds, it could lead to a sea change in election law and congressional representation. Pettinato’s lawsuit argues that the Census Bureau cannot stop at only applying the penalty to the newer restrictions that have garnered headlines, like laws passed by Wisconsin or Texas. Rather, nearly all limits on voting — even longstanding voter registration laws — also count as abridgments and require penalization. Under Pettinato’s argument, states like California and New York, which normally are not on anyone’s list of top vote-restrictors, could lose representatives because of their voter registration requirements.

That’s because, according to the lawsuit, the penalty clause sets out a simple rule: Any citizen who resides in a state, is at least 18 years old and has not participated in a rebellion or been convicted of certain crimes must be free to vote in the state.

The rule is straightforward for the Census Bureau to apply, Pettinato argues. The bureau already has all the information it needs to “easily, or at least practically,” calculate how many people’s rights have been abridged.

But if it’s so simple, why has it never been enforced?

One of the biggest reasons is the clause doesn’t say who is supposed to apply it, or how. The other major factor has been simple opposition to fully protecting the right to vote, particularly for Black Americans.

Franita Tolson, a professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, says Congress intended for itself, not the courts or the Census Bureau, to enforce the penalty. And Congress did make one attempt. It asked Americans in the 1870 census whether their “right to vote is denied or abridged,” with the aim of using the data to apply any penalty.

The effort failed amid stiff political resistance. Despite widespread Black disenfranchisement, the census reported voting rights were abridged for less than half of 1 percent of the population. Southern states did not cooperate in the data-gathering. No one trusted the numbers — the superintendent of the Census reported that census takers were “not competent” to judge whose voting rights were abridged, while the secretary of the Interior said the statistics should receive “little credit.” Congress did nothing with those figures, and when Reconstruction ended a few years later, lawmakers soon lost interest in trying again.

Tolson says that even though Congress meant itself to be the penalty clause enforcer, that could change. The court in Pettinato’s case could decide to buck history and require the Census Bureau to finally enforce the provision.

In fact, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund launched a similar legal challenge ahead of the 1970 census. The group asked the courts to declare that the Commerce Department, which houses the Census Bureau, was required to apply the penalty clause. The case was dismissed, with the D.C. federal appeals court reasoning that the recently enacted Voting Rights Act of 1965 and 24th Amendment, which banned poll taxes, should be given time to work before the penalty clause was considered.

Pettinato’s suit is a little different. Rather than asking for a declaration from the court — which leaves the court with significant discretion about whether to agree — it seeks an order requiring the bureau to act.

But he will still have to overcome any number of arguments for throwing the suit out. The court may decide that the plaintiff, a nonprofit whose members live in states that could gain representatives if the penalty is applied, lacks standing to bring the claim. Or it might hold that the Census Bureau is not obliged to apply the penalty, since the law directing the bureau to apportion representatives does not mention the 14th Amendment. Or it could conclude that the entire issue of enforcement is a political question that should be left to Congress and the president, not the courts.

Some legal experts are particularly skeptical of Pettinato’s theory that nearly any limit on the right to vote, even voter registration laws, are enough to trigger the penalty.

“I don’t think there will be much judicial support for that position,” says Tolson, noting that voter registration laws are widespread throughout the country. “Some things are just water under the bridge.”

Michael Morley, a Florida State University College of Law professor, also says small impediments to voting are not enough to invoke the penalty clause, since the penalty — loss of representation — is so severe. “If the penalty is extremely harsh, that would suggest that it takes a substantial burden, not a minor inconvenience, to amount to a violation,” he says.

Still, simply because the provision may be difficult to interpret doesn’t mean it can easily be ignored. It’s still a piece of the Constitution, even if it’s been gathering dust. Meanwhile, voting rights for millions of Americans — particularly people of color — are increasingly imperiled.

It will be months, perhaps years, before Pettinato’s lawsuit is finally resolved. But for all the hurdles facing him, he remains enthusiastic.

“I just feel very lucky to be able to bring this case,” Pettinato says, “and to try to revive a part of the Constitution that’s laid dormant for 150 years.”

The unexpected reversal by Sen. Joe Manchin has Republicans pounding the walls and kicking veterans to take out their rage. Just why the West Virginia senator decided to sign on to a deal that seems materially almost identical to the one that he turned down last month, leaving both his colleagues, staffers, and activists wailing in frustration, isn’t clear. Maybe Sen. Chuck Schumer is the greatest unsung negotiator of our age. Or … maybe not.  

The simple fact that Manchin signed on would seem to suggest that the legislation has been gutted of all important features, that it will fail to meet the challenge of the climate crisis, and that it must be loaded with bad bargains. There certainly are some unnecessary, counterproductive features included, like funding for a pipeline that will move fracked natural gas out of West Virginia. Not only does this legislation include some foolish choices that can be seen as exacerbating the climate crisis, it’s also missing a tremendous amount of what was in President Joe Biden’s original Build Back Better plan when it comes to climate and energy.

But the bigger surprise may be that this legislation includes so much good stuff. Does it have everything that activists wanted? It does not. Does it clamp down on future use of fossil fuels? Not at all. But what this proposed legislation does include may mean that efforts to end coal, oil, and gas legislatively are unnecessary, because it contains the kind of assurances that renewables need in order to run fossil fuels out of the market. And that’s just the start.

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The full package of H.R. 5376 comes to 725 pages, and understanding all of it, including the details of how implementation will affect outcomes, is going to take further analysis. But here’s a general overview of what all Democratic senators are now supporting. 

Corporate tax reform: The first part of the legislation actually comes under the heading of “deficit reduction.” Considering the way the media has been playing up inflation, with only occasional admissions that this is a global problem and not something just affecting the U.S., this part of the legislation allows those signing on to claim to be fighting inflation and righting corporate wrongs, even as they also address the climate crisis. The biggest item here is a corporate minimum tax of 15%, which will go a long way toward eliminating all those instances of “Corporation X made billions, but paid no taxes.” As with most tax measures, there are ways that corporations can rejigger their balance sheets to avoid portions of this tax, but the bill takes some pains in trying to close known loopholes. This measure alone is expected to raise around $370 billion

Closing the carried interest loophole: One tax dodge comes in for particular attention. The bill would end the carried interest loophole that currently allows corporations and investment managers to pay the 20% long-term capital gains tax rate on “income received as compensation” rather than what are generally much higher rates for ordinary income. The bill exempts families making under $400,000, and is expected to raise about $14 billion.

Additional funding for IRS investigations: There’s a big boost in funding for the IRS, specifically targeted at increasing investigations of tax avoidance. The bill calls for more than $48 billion to be put into the IRS over the next decade, but is expected to net gains of nearly $125 billion.

Allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs: This section is long overdue in ending what amounts to an ongoing cash giveaway to pharmaceutical investors. This step alone is expected to save the federal government $288 billion, which makes the fact that it didn’t happen sooner a good source for instant anger. There are some exemptions in this legislation that allow production of some new agents, particularly the “biologics and biosimilars” that are becoming increasingly important in cancer treatment, to stay on the gravy train. For now. But out-of-pocket costs for Medicare participants is capped at $2,000. There are also consumer rebates for drug costs that go up due to inflation and a penalty for manufacturers who raise the cost of an existing drug at greater than the rate of inflation.

Taken together, these measures represent a savings that the Congressional Budget Office estimates to be $739 billion, and every one of those actions is a definitive good. 

Now, here’s how the bill spends $433 billion, while reducing the deficit by over $300 billion.

Three years of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act: Tired of watching Republicans force a fight over the Affordable Care Act each year, constantly chip away at the level of subsidies, and force the surrender on some other point in order to keep people supplied with health care? Relax for the next three years, because $64 billion worth of subsidies goes on the books with this legislation.

Credits for manufacturers of renewable energy products: Right now, most solar panels are made in China, and in recent years other nations like India and Vietnam have been moving to the forefront as existing panels become commodity items searching for the lowest possible cost at every step. However, there are ways to make more efficient, longer-lasting solar panels, as well as high-efficiency turbines for wind power, and the ever-increasing need for high capacity battery storage. This legislation hopes to lure both of these back to the United States with $60 billion of incentives to open new plants and expand existing plants.

Extension of tax credits for home renewables: For those who have been sweating the idea that tax credits for adding solar or other renewables at home were about to run out, that fear is ended by credits that are both extended and expanded. Credits would apply for rooftop solar and associated systems, high-efficiency heat pumps, and more. There is also $9 billion in this section for consumers who want to make their homes more energy efficient with insulation and other improvements and another $1 billion for upgrading affordable housing to use less energy. Wind and solar power providers would also get extra funding when providing power to low-income areas.

Credit for carbon sequestration: Yes, carbon capture technology has utterly failed to meet the challenge with which it is most often associated—namely, “clean coal.” That has tarnished its reputation with activists, but if we’re going to meet the goals necessary to address the climate crisis, one step is going to be figuring out ways to drastically reduce the carbon generated by things like manufacturing concrete. Manchin probably made this one of his Big Deals when negotiating over this bill, even though it’s unlikely to affect his favorite industry. Most the legislation expands the scope of existing tax credits and raises the level of subsidies.

Nuclear power tax credit: Either you think nuclear power is worse than fossil fuels and you’re going to hate this, or you think that nuclear power is a necessary part of a zero-emission strategy and you’re going to love this. Either way, there’s a subsidy here that gives nuclear energy a slight boost, but isn’t at a level where it would seem to make nuclear a competitive option for increasingly cheap renewables. Mostly, this seems like a giveaway of $0.03 / kilowatt hour to existing nuclear power plants.

Extending existing credits for ethanol and biodiesel: This is another of the existing programs where the reasons for the technology have less to do with dealing with climate change than with providing additional markets for excess agricultural goods. In short: It helps keep the corn prices up. And it will, because existing credits have been extended through 2025, but not obviously increased.

Credits for hydrogen vehicles and fuel: There are still those who expect hydrogen to take off and surpass batteries as the preferred means of powering electric vehicles and providing large scale energy storage. There are some good arguments for hydrogen (and at least as many against), but hydrogen fans will get a chance to continue the fight as the credits for hydrogen production and production of hydrogen vehicles have also been extended. They’ve also been modified somewhat from past credits, but since this contains a lot of details replacing points in past legislation, it’s going to take some time to figure out how.

Electric vehicle credits: The tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles have been a big factor in making the current generation of EVs affordable to consumers, and those credits were on the brink of running out. Now they’re back—and they are considerably better than before because of two factors:

• The $7,500 incentive for the purchase of new vehicles is no longer phased out after a number of vehicles is sold. That means, among other things, that you can go buy an EV with a range of 240 miles from GM at an effective price of under $20k. 
• Purchasing a used EV will now come with a $4,000 credit. Getting EVs into the used vehicle chain and making them attractive has been an issue, especially with high demand sometimes making used vehicles sell for more than new. But this bill should help both get more new vehicles out there and make it more attractive to buy a used EV.

There are limits on the EV portion of the bill, including a maximum $55,000 price for a car, and a maximum of $80,000 for an SUV or truck. But there are currently a lot of vehicles below that threshold. There are also limits on the income of purchasers, which are set at $112,500 for an individual and $150,000 for a family. Those limits may be frustrating to some, but they help push the idea that this is intended to make EVs affordable to working- and middle-class families, not provide a discount for wealthy consumers purchasing a status symbol.

Overall, the CBO totals these investments at $433 billion.

The biggest factor may not be in any of the dollar totals, but in the simple word “extension” that appears over and over. That’s especially key when it comes to credits for renewable energy projects and manufacture. The biggest thing this bill gives is the kind of long-term stability that attracts investors and allows manufacturers to engage in large-scale projects. That’s a very, very important factor when it comes to finally idling remaining fossil fuel plants and building out both renewables and storage.

Is it everything we want? No. There are major programs missing, and over $300 billion being left on the table in the name of pointless deficit reduction. Every dollar of that could be going to something vital—like improving the national grid so that renewable energy can be harvested in the most effective locations and be used to provide power where it’s needed. The bill not only contains some foolish items like that West Virginia gas pipeline, and it does nothing to place new limits on fossil fuel production or clamp down on either greenhouse gases or other forms of pollution.

But is it a bill that gives America a huge shot of What It Needs? Definitely.

Abortion rights, climate change, and gun safety are all on the ballot this fall, and there are literally thousands of ways to get involved in turning our voters. Plug into a federal, state, or local campaign from our GOTV feed at Mobilize and help Democrats and progressives win in November.

It’s not new to see the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) being criticized for neglecting the issues some veterans are facing. For years advocates have been taking note of the lack of care, and raising awareness and aid for those millions of veterans whose health and other necessary care have been neglected. Among those constantly advocating for better veteran services and support is former The Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Stewart has often been spotted joining advocates on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to pass bills that would benefit veterans.

One of the policies that Stewart has been advocating for is the Honoring Our PACT Act. PACT stands for “Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics” and addresses the needs of veterans whose health has been compromised by exposure to toxins while serving our country. Specifically, the act focuses on exposure from burn pits, a practice of burning materials in a pit that results in exposure to not only several types of waste, but chemicals and hazardous material.

Sponsored by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Rep. Raul Ruiz, the bill aims to treat veterans' exposure to burn pits as a presumptive condition for any veteran of war.

According to the Military Times, as many as 3.5 million veterans could be eligible for benefits under the legislation. Under the bill, medical conditions associated with exposure to burn pits including cancers, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and other rare diseases will be covered.

According to The New York Times, service members have been exposed to more than 250 burn pits used to dispose of trash while deployed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Veterans believe cancers, lung diseases, and other respiratory illnesses can be connected to their exposure. 

While the issue has recently gained national attention, advocates have been demanding legislation to protect veterans for years. Many remained hopeful the act would pass but on Wednesday Republican officials—who claim they care about veterans—blocked it.

While the House passed the PACT Act earlier this month, Republican senators blocked the bill's passage Wednesday. While all Democrats voted for the Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act, only eight Republican senators voted in favor. As a result, the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster in the Senate.

According to The Guardian, 25 Republican senators who previously supported the measure declined to move it forward Wednesday.

CNN reported that some Republicans allegedly no longer backed the measure because Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, was blocking votes on amendments Republicans wanted.

If passed, the bill would have expanded health care coverage for more than 3 million veterans exposed to toxic burn pits and Vietnam-era veterans exposed to the deadly herbicide Agent Orange.

“My concern about this bill has nothing to do with the purpose of the bill,” Sen. Pat Toomey, who didn’t support the bill, said. He claimed that an additional $400 billion, not related to veterans, would be spent. “This budgetary gimmick is so unrelated to the actual veterans issue that has to do with burn pits, that it’s not even in the House version of this bill.”

“We’ve been spending money like no one’s ever imagined,” Toomey added. “I would stress there’s a very easy path to a very big vote in favor of this bill [but] let’s fix this problem.”

The bill’s lack of support created controversy in the Senate, with some elected officials accusing others of not supporting the country’s heroes.

“If you have the guts to send somebody to war, then you better have the guts to take care of them when they get home,” Sen. Jon Tester said. ‘If we don’t take care of our veterans when they come home, they’re going to say, ‘Why should I ever sign the dotted line. Because the promises I made and the promises the country made, only half that deal is being respected.’”

The House passed the PACT Act by a 342-88 vote on July 13, about a month after the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 84-14. The Senate retook the bill Wednesday due to some minor changes, The Hill reported.

According to The Hill, the updated legislation adds 23 toxic and burn pit exposure conditions to the Department of Veterans Affairs database, while expanding care for post-9/11 veterans who were exposed to the burn pits.

According to PBS News, the bill contains two major components, the first being extending the grace period by which military veterans serving near burn pits can get medical care through the Department of Veterans Affairs (from five years to 10) and the second being that the VA is to presume that certain respiratory illnesses and cancers were related to burn pit exposure.

At this time more than 70% of disability claims related to burn pit exposure are denied by the VA due to lack of evidence, according to scientific data and information from the Defense Department, PBS reported.

“Think of the injustice of that,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said regarding the denial rate.

Prior to Toomey’s urging members to vote against it, the bill seemed to be receiving substantial bipartisan support.

Responding to the Senate vote and Toomey’s comments, Stewart criticized Senate Republicans for their lack of humanity.

In a tweet he said:

“Congratulations @SenToomey You successfully used the Byzantine Senate rules to keep sick veterans suffering!!!! Kudos! I’m sure you’ll celebrate by kicking a dog or punching a baby…or whatever terrible people do for fun!!!!!” He later added, “PS F— the R caucus and their empty promise to our veterans.”

He also joined advocates during a press conference Thursday to express his anger.

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More than 20 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s administration Tuesday over a Department of Agriculture school meal program rule. According to the Associated Press, the rule prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. As a result, schools that do not implement LGBTQ-friendly policies will face potential cuts in federal meal funding.

Led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, the lawsuit claims that the federal government is attempting to force states and schools to follow anti-discrimination requirements that “misconstrue the law.”

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The rule is a result of a May announcement in which the USDA said it would include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as a violation of Title IX. Title IX is a 1972 law that guarantees equity between the sexes in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Per the new rule, states are required to review allegations of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as update their policies and signage.

“Whether you are grocery shopping, standing in line at the school cafeteria, or picking up food from a food bank, you should be able to do so without fear of discrimination,” said Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Deputy Under-Secretary Stacy Dean in a May 5 statement announcing the USDA’s effort.

While the agency emphasized volunteer compliance, it also noted that states and schools that receive federal funds have agreed to comply with federal civil rights laws.

According to the AP, the directive followed a landmark civil rights decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 that found that Title VII, protects gay, lesbian, and transgender people from discrimination in the workplace.

The attorneys general involved in the lawsuit believe the new directive has not only misread the SCOTUS ruling, but has also failed to provide states and other groups the opportunity to provide public comment.

“We all know the Biden administration is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nationwide. But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the Left’s bidding,” Rokita said in a press release Tuesday.

Rokita made news this week for opening an investigation into the doctor who provided a medication abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio who was forced to travel to Indiana to receive care. 

By filing the lawsuit, the attorneys general are hoping to get a similar result as to a separate challenge from earlier this month, when a Tenessee judge temporarily barred two federal agencies from enforcing directives issued by Biden’s administration. Those directives also extended protections for LGBTQ+ people in schools and workplaces.

In that case, the judge sided with the attorneys general, and ruled that the directives infringed on states’ right to enact laws, the AP reported. The laws in question included the ability to ban students from participating in sports based on their gender identity or requiring schools and businesses to provide bathrooms and showers to accommodate transgender people; the judge believed policies involving such actions should be enacted by the state.

“This case is, yet again, about a federal agency trying to change law, which is Congress’ exclusive prerogative,” Slatery said in a statement. “The USDA simply does not have that authority. We have successfully challenged the Biden Administration’s other attempts to rewrite law, and we will challenge this as well.”

As of this report, the following 22 state attorneys general are involved in the lawsuit: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

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Doug Mastriano has sterling credentials as a right-wing extremist, a fact currently being highlighted by his association with the social media platform Gab and its heinously antisemitic founder and CEO. Mastriano, the Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee, doesn’t need Gab to prove himself—he’s a longtime bigot and conspiracy theorist who actively supported Donald Trump’s coup attempt. But Mastriano’s ties to Gab are providing some eye-popping content in recent days.

Mastriano’s campaign paid Gab a “consulting” fee, possibly to buy followers on the platform, which is known as a “haven for white nationalists.” Around the same time, Gab CEO Andrew Torba interviewed Mastriano, with Mastriano telling Torba, “Thank God for what you’ve done,” among other praise. Now, Torba is spewing out one antisemitic statement after another, explicitly connecting himself to Mastriano in some of them.

RELATED STORY: Republicans are falling in line behind the candidate they called a 'disaster'

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Torba recently drew attention for saying, “We don’t want people who are atheists. We don’t want people who are Jewish” in the “explicitly Christian” conservative movement he considers himself a part of. He named one name in particular: “Ben Shapiro is not welcome in the movement unless he repents and accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.”

Mastriano has not disavowed Torba, even as Torba has doubled down in a series of videos. “We’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore,” he said in one. About 2% of people in the United States are Jewish.

“My policy is not to conduct interviews with reporters who aren’t Christian or with outlets who aren’t Christian, and Doug has a very similar media strategy where he does not do interviews with these people,” he said in another, reported by The Jerusalem Post. “He does not talk to these people. He does not give press access to these people. These people are dishonest. They’re liars. They’re a den of vipers and they want to destroy you.”

This is an avowed Christian nationalist more or less speaking for the Republican nominee for governor of a large purple state, and said nominee hasn’t cut ties. Even if establishment Republicans find a way to pressure Mastriano into disavowing Torba, the fact that it didn’t happen immediately tells you what you need to know about Mastriano’s real thoughts here.

But the fact that Mastriano was associated with Gab at all would tell you that. The platform was established touting “free speech,” making clear that hate speech and harassment were included in that freedom. The man charged with killing 11 people in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue had posted antisemitic messages to Gab, making Mastriano’s embrace of Gab as he runs for Pennsylvania office particularly gross.

When Andrew Torba says, “We don’t want people who are atheists. We don’t want people who are Jewish,” it’s crystal clear that Doug Mastriano is part of that “we.”

Abortion rights, climate change, and gun safety are all on the ballot this fall, and there are literally thousands of ways to get involved in turning our voters. Plug into a federal, state, or local campaign from our GOTV feed at Mobilize and help Democrats and progressives win in November.

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Doug Mastriano did not need Trump to lead him to conspiracy theories. He's been there for 20 years

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It’s almost August in a midterm election year and Democrats are in a flurry of activity trying to figure out their campaign message. One possibility that’s surfacing is being blunt and direct and accurately describing Republicans as the extremists they are. 

Mind blown, right?

Republicans scream “socialist” about the most committed moderate Democrat, yet the idea of emphasizing that Republicans are massively out of step with the country on issues like abortion, marriage equality, and contraception is still being debated among Democrats. They’re getting close, though.

RELATED STORY: The country can't afford to give the Senate five weeks off for August recess

The Democratic National Committee and state parties are putting out ads highlighting extremist statements and legislative votes by Republicans on issues like abortion. House leaders are promoting a central argument that “extreme MAGA Republicans care about only one thing: their own power.” In addition to abortion, Democratic leaders are planning events around Republican efforts to cut Social Security, as well as gun safety to coordinate with the beginning of the school year.

As a Democratic strategist told CNN, “I understand that you're frustrated, everything sucks—but that [Republican candidate] thinks that you can't get pregnant from rape, that person believes in QAnon. ... I know you don't like Democrats—but do you actually want to vote for that person?”

That’s not a hypothetical, by the way. Republican Yesli Vega, challenging Rep. Abigail Spanberger in a competitive Virginia district, has questioned whether pregnancy from rape is possible, because “it's not something that's happening organically. You're forcing it.” And Spanberger is aware of the opportunity this presents, saying that statement is “out of touch with voters in the district, but also reality,” as is Vega’s view that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was merely “a group of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.”

In other words, Democrats are considering communicating to voters that this is not a choice between two competing legislative agendas: It’s a choice between a policy agenda you might or might not fully agree with advanced by people you might find irritating in one way or another, and an extremist effort to strip people’s rights, support insurrection, and overturn elections. 

Democrats are still Democrats, though. They’re definitely not leaving policy behind, though they’re trying to improve their communication skills. A 12-page playbook from the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee instructs lawmakers and candidates, “When explaining a policy or issue, keep it simple! Don’t fall into the trap that Democrats often do of going into too much detail.” The playbook identifies a series of issues to highlight:

• Voting Rights Act — (“Post on social media using suggested hashtags: #VotingRightsNow #RestoretheVRA.”)

• Comprehensive immigration solutions — (“Vilifying and fear and will never solve anything.”)

• Make it in America — (“We can stop companies from setting up overseas addresses and dodging their responsibility to pay their fair share of takes here at home.”)

• Student debt relief — (“Ask constituents on social media to respond with how they would spend the money if they didn’t have loans.”)

• A potential government shutdown — (“When Congress returns in September, we face an imminent shutdown.”)

But you know what would be fabulous additions to that list? Passing marriage equality—or getting Republicans on the record opposing it. Passing the right to birth control—or getting Republicans on the record against it. The House has already held those votes, and 195 Republicans voted against birth control, while 157 voted against the Respect for Marriage Act. Senate Democrats need to get those votes done, now. And any Republican who votes against them, House or Senate, should be on the receiving end of a barrage of ads pointing out where they stand.

“Democrats would be irresponsible, both morally and politically, if we just went with the same poll-tested stuff about delivering infrastructure,” Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz told CNN, accurately. “There's a place for all of that, but these people are out of their minds and are really acting with impunity, and we need to say so.”

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Siemens and Philadelphia-based ConnectDER have partnered to debut a groundbreaking simple home EV charger connector. Previously, homeowners who wanted to install EV chargers might have had to spend thousands of dollars to modify their home's electrical panel. This new proprietary plug-in adapter will eliminate that cost and allow installation and connection in minutes. ConnectDER makes meter collars that are installed between the home's meter and the meter socket to create a single plug-and-play access point for distributed energy resources (DER) installation. In other words, the collars easily add new electrical service capacity for things like solar and energy storage. Now ConnectDER will exclusively manufacture and supply a proprietary plug-in EV charger adapter to Siemens. The new adapter will enable electric car owners to charge their EVs by connecting chargers directly through the meter socket, which is on every home. It provides more useable capacity by monitoring total load and controlling the EV circuit to ensure the total capacity rating is within the limit. Bypassing the electrical panel reduces the EV charger installation cost by around 60 to 80% because electrical panel upgrades aren't needed. [...] Nearly half of US home electrical panels previously would have needed upgrades to allow the installation of a typical Level 2 charger, usually a 7-11kW device requiring 40-60 Amps on a 240V line. A Siemens spokesperson said that the company is still finalizing pricing, but "it will be a fraction of the cost of a service panel upgrade or other modifications often needed to make for a charger. Additionally, in some cases, the cost may be fully borne by utility programs." The adapters themselves are expected to be available by first quarter 2023.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MIAMI — Continuing to target what he calls “woke” corporations, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to prohibit state investments that use “environmental, social and governance” ratings, which can include taking into account impacts of climate change. DeSantis plans to have the State Board of Administration, which oversees investments, direct pension-fund managers against “using political factors when investing the state’s money.” So-called ESG policies have drawn criticism from Republicans across the country. “We want them (fund managers) to invest the state’s money for the best interests of the benefici…

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