Source: New York Post
by Jonathan Turley
“For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity. It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity standard Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: ‘I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. … But I know it when I see it.’ The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in ‘furtherance of another crime.'” (04/24/24)
https://nypost.com/2024/04/24/opinion/alvin-bragg-has-his-trump-trial-all-he-needs-now-is-a-crime/
Source: Reuters
“U.S. Supreme Court justices, wading back into the battle over abortion access, appeared divided on Wednesday in a case pitting Idaho’s strict Republican-backed abortion ban against a federal law that ensures that patients can receive emergency care. The justices heard arguments in an appeal by Idaho officials of a lower court’s ruling that found that the 1986 U.S. law at issue, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), supersedes the state’s near-total ban in the relatively rare circumstances when the two conflict. President Joe Biden’s administration, which sued Idaho over the abortion law, has urged the justices to uphold that ruling. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. No consensus seemed to emerge among the conservative justices, who expressed concerns including what protections federal law extends to ‘unborn children’ and whether Congress had clearly spelled out that EMTALA can mandate abortion in certain emergency cases.” (04/24/24)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-weighs-idahos-strict-abortion-ban-medical-emergencies-2024-04-24/
Source: USA Today
“On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether a state’s near-total abortion ban conflicts with federal requirements for emergency care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. EMTALA was passed by Congress in 1986 to ensure that all patients can access emergency medical care, free of discrimination. We have all needed to use the emergency room at some point in our lives. This case will have real consequences on real lives and jeopardizes our fundamental right to religious freedom. Protecting emergency reproductive care that prioritizes the life of the pregnant person is at its very core about our right to religious freedom in a country that claims to have separation of church and state. People of all faiths must be able to practice what their religion teaches.” [editor’s note: If my religion requires me to … make involuntary withdrawals from … banks, do I get to practice it? – TLK] (04/24/24)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2024/04/24/supreme-court-idaho-abortion-emergency-healthcare-emtala/73425094007/
Source: Politico
“Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who’s leading the charge in Congress to crack down on the digital-asset industry, is getting another crypto-friendly challenger to her reelection bid. But Republican Ian Cain, who founded a startup incubator south of Boston that’s geared toward growing the use of blockchain technology, claims cryptocurrency won’t be a major focus of his campaign — even as he goes up against Congress’ loudest crypto critic and against Republican John Deaton, whose digital-asset advocacy has attracted financial backing from major industry players. … Like his main rival for the Republican nomination, Cain only recently joined the GOP.” (04/24/24)
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/elizabeth-warren-senate-republican-challenger-00154039
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“The dangers of unsound money are becoming more apparent by the day. Mike Maharrey describes how the founding fathers predicted the economic problems of today.” (04/24/24)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-669ug-15f4b9a
Source: Antiwar.com
by Roger D Harris
“The North American peace movement is contesting ongoing US wars in Ukraine and Palestine and preparations for war with China. Out of the fog of these wars, a clear anti-imperialist focus is emerging. Giving peace a chance has never been more plainly understood as opposition to what Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to as ‘the greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government.’ … The overall consciousness of the resurgent peace movement reflects the normalization of anti-imperialism as a leading current; antiwar sentiment is becoming explicitly anti-imperialist.” (04/24/24)
https://original.antiwar.com/Roger_Harris/2024/04/23/the-north-american-peace-movement-at-an-inflection-point/
Source: SFGate
“Don Blankenship hasn’t had much success running for office. He ran for the Senate as a Republican in 2018 and sought the White House in 2020 as a third party candidate. He lost badly both times but is on the ballot again in 2024, this time as a Democrat seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Joe Manchin. Blankenship has plenty of baggage heading into the May 14 Democratic primary. Beyond his history of political losses, he’s perhaps best known in this coal-producing state as the former chief executive of Massey Energy who spent a year in federal prison for conspiring to violate mine safety laws before an explosion at his West Virginia coal mine killed 29 men in 2010.” (04/24/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/disgraced-coal-ceo-lost-races-as-gop-and-third-19419496.php
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“Nearly one year after the official end of the federal COVID-19 emergency declaration, the regular use of face masks for non-immunocompromised people has faded from American life. Outdoor masking, mandated in many states during the peak of the pandemic, became even rarer after a 2022 CDC advisory scaled it back. But that gradual return to barefaced life never reached left-leaning protests, where face masks are widely used and encouraged. Part of the reason, say organizers, remains an attempt to make a point about exposure to COVID-19 and other health risks, which some in the left-wing protest movements believe remain dire. And part is the threat of a different kind of exposure — from being captured by facial recognition technology or becoming doxxed (their personal information being shared online) by counter-protesters.” (04/23/24)
https://www.semafor.com/article/04/23/2024/the-rise-of-the-masked-israel-gaza-protester
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“The Federal Trade Commission is working to prevent every store in a moderately upscale Southern California mall from having the same owner. More specifically, it wants to prevent the workers who staff those stores from enduring lower wages and benefits. Those are some of the primary stakes in a merger challenge to a proposed $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Tapestry, Inc. Few would recognize these two parent companies, but you probably know their associated brands: Versace, Jimmy Choo, and Michael Kors are part of Capri, while Kate Spade, Coach, and Stuart Weitzman are in the Tapestry empire. All would come under the same corporate owner if the deal were to go through. … The prospect of another U.S. monopoly was enough for all five FTC commissioners (including the two new Republicans, who were just brought aboard in the last month) to vote to block the merger.” (04/24/24)
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-04-24-challenge-fashion-merger-new-antitrust-philosophy/
Source: The Corbett Report
“How to Defeat A Gatekeeper.” (04/24/24)
https://corbettreport.com/how-to-defeat-a-gatekeeper/
