September 27, 2022
By Madison Selcho

...The two main timeline stamps (click here) for the feud between Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and The Walt Disney Company

...State Rep. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange County, declared that DeSantis’ statements on this issue were “an alarming turn of events.”

“This is the DeSantis administration openly saying they plan to seize control of a local government for opposing his extreme agenda,” Guillermo-Smith said. “The gravity of what we’re seeing happening in front of us should be a warning sign to all Americans and to all Floridians.”

November 15, 2022
By Katie Rice

Disney World (click here) on Tuesday revealed increases in theme-park ticket prices and said for the first time it will charge extra for one-day tickets based on which park a customer reserves.

Starting Dec. 8, the minimum one-day price for the Magic Kingdom will rise nearly 14% from $109 to $124 and reach a maximum of $189 during the nine-day Christmas holidays. The one-day price for Epcot will range from $114 to $179....

November 15, 2022
By Mike Schuler

The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet intercepted a fishing vessel (click here) attempting to smuggle a “massive amount” of explosive material from Iran to Yemen.

U.S. Coast Guard’s USCGC John Scheuerman (WPC 1146) and guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) interdicted the vessel as it transited international waters in the Gulf of Oman on November 8.

A weeklong search of the vessel assisted by Navy explosive ordnance disposal technicians from the USS Hurricane (PC 3) uncovered more than 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate, a powerful oxidizer commonly used to make rocket and missile fuel as well as explosives. Th Navy said it’s the 5th Fleet’s first-ever interdiction of the material.

The search also found more than 100 tons of urea fertilizer, which is also known for use in explosives....

Ammonium perchorate (click here)

Ammonium perchlorate appears as a white, crystalline solid or powder. Classified as a division 1.1 explosive if powdered into particles smaller than 15 microns in diameter or if powdered into larger particles but thoroughly dried. Does not readily burn, but will burn if contaminated by combustible material. May explode under prolonged exposure to heat or fire. Used to make rocket propellants, explosives, pyrotechnics, as an etching and engraving agent, and in analytical chemistry.

November 15, 2022
By Marianna Parraga

Nov 14 (Reuters) – The international ship registries of Djibouti and the Cook Islands (click here) suspended the flags on five oil tankers, following sanctions by the United States this month for having facilitated oil trade for Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force, nongovernment organization United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) said on Monday.

The U.S. Treasury Department in early November imposed sanctions on a wide network of companies, people and vessels accused of concealing the Iranian origins of shipments and exporting them around the world.

Oil tankers Bueno, B Luminosa, Bluefins and Boceanica were suspended in recent days from the Djibouti International Ship Registry after the sanctions, while vessel Rain Drop was removed from the Maritime Cook Island’s registry, according to communications provided by UANI.

Washington maintains sweeping sanctions on Tehran and has looked for ways to increase pressure as attempts have stalled to resurrect the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Ships that lack a country’s flag, seaworthy classification or insurance are restricted from moving among international ports.

Most of the tankers are in Venezuelan waters, where they are being used by state-run oil firm PDVSA to move oil and fuel between domestic ports, according to internal company documents seen by Reuters....

Hezbollah runs it's drug cartel from Venezuela.

October 7, 2020

Too often, (click here) Hezbollah in Venezuela is characterized as only a potential terrorist threat. In reality, the Lebanese terrorist group has helped to turn Venezuela into a hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime and international terrorism.

When the Supreme Court cared about the people.

 

This is the original Affirmative Action decision.

...In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (click here), the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. The Court reasoned that, because the Law School conducts highly individualized review of each applicant, no acceptance or rejection is based automatically on a variable such as race and that this process ensures that all factors that may contribute to diversity are meaningfully considered alongside race. Justice O'Connor wrote, "in the context of its individualized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions of all applicants, the Law School's race-conscious admissions program does not unduly harm nonminority applicants."

In the oral arguments on that page Clarence Thomas asks no questions. Justice Scalia chimes in a few times, but, never Thomas.

Besides Thomas none of the original Justices that rendered the opinion are on the court. Thomas is the only original judge. Thomas also brings a lot of religious bias to his decisions, but, in this article even the Catholics are questioning his decision about Affirmative Action.

...So it is not a surprise that Thomas, (click here) a celebrated member of the conservative Catholic community made the connection in his concurring opinion about the Indiana abortion law. He noted the origins of eugenics (click here) as a scientific and academic discipline, explaining that "leaders in the eugenics movement held prominent positions at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, among other schools, and eugenics was taught at 376 universities and colleges."

Whatever the truth to the claims that abortion policy and jurisprudence are rooted in eugenic ideas, it is clear that eugenics itself is contrary to Catholic morals and social teaching. And it could be easily grasped why a Catholic justice would be concerned about the mischief that eugenic thinking in policy and medicine could do in a system that is not properly inoculated against it.

Which is why it was surprising to hear him take the opposite position to modest anti-racism policies in recent oral arguments for cases challenging affirmative action.

On Oct. 31, the Supreme Court heard two different cases challenging affirmative action. One case involves affirmative action in a public university, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, and the other in a private university, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

During oral arguments in the North Carolina case, Thomas questioned the educational benefit of racially diverse schools: "...

Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I was beginning to wonder if the USA's huge venture into space flight again would ever get off the ground. It happened and we are on the way to Moon missions.

The world’s most powerful rocket (click here) will make a trip around the Moon in 2022 — a step towards landing people there in 2025, and part of the US Artemis programme.

16 November 2022
By Alexandra Witze

NASA’s huge new rocket (click here) blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1.47 a.m. Eastern time today, achieving a major milestone in the agency’s plans to send astronauts back to the Moon.

“We rise together, back to the Moon and beyond,” said NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail as the mighty rocket thundered into the night skies above Cape Canaveral.

The launch put an uncrewed astronaut capsule, called Orion, into Earth orbit and towards a planned course to fly past the Moon and back over the next 26 days. The flight, known as Artemis I, will test whether the rocket and capsule will be able to transport humans safely, while carrying a number of scientific experiments.

This is the first time in half a century that NASA has flown a rocket powerful enough to send humans beyond low Earth orbit.

The flight was delayed after two attempts in late August and early September, which were cut short owing to hardware problems, including leaks of liquid hydrogen fuel. NASA then passed on a launch opportunity in late September because of an approaching hurricane, before putting it back on the launch pad, where it experienced high winds and rain from a different storm last week. NASA managers say that storm caused only minor damage to the rocket, including peeling off a strip of caulking that they say will not endanger the launch....

Don't try to understand all the jargon, just sit back and watch.

Clarence Thomas has some serious issues as an Associate Justice.

The Roberts' Court is not high in the ranking of knowledgeable and competent. There is a great deal of hatred and anger within this court of the American people. The conservative majority is simply wrong about most of their decisions. They are Anti-American and lean into religious prejudice.

November 16, 2022

By Steven Lubet

The six conservative justice (click here) on the U.S. Supreme Court have seemingly come to think of themselves as historians, able to excavate the original meaning of the Constitution from archival sources revealed to them in the briefs of petitioners and respondents. The result has been bad history and worse law, culminating in last term’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, where the majority invalidated New York’s restrictions on carrying concealed handguns because it was deemed inconsistent with “this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

According to Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion, a gun control statute can be upheld only if there is an “American tradition justifying” its specific provisions, meaning similar laws in force around 1791 (when the Second Amendment was adopted) or 1868 (when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, which made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states)....

That is a very confused set of values. There is a reason why he voted with the late Justice Scalia, because he had no clue.

October 24, 2022

Congress should investigate Ginni Thomas for her involvement in the January 6th attack (click here) on the Capitol and attempts to overthrow the 2020 election and Justice Clarence Thomas for his failure to recuse from related cases, according to a request sent by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington today to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

Ginni Thomas, who holds a government position as a board member of the Library of Congress Trust Fund, messaged the Trump White House encouraging then-president Donald Trump to refuse to concede and join an attempt by Sidney Powell to have the Supreme Court overturn the election result. She also contacted multiple state officials in an attempt to have them set aside and alter the result of the election in their states. She told Trump’s chief of staff that an army was gathering to keep Trump in office and took part in the January 6th rallies that led to the attack on the Capitol.

“It is critical that those responsible for the attack on the Capitol be held accountable and that the integrity of the Supreme Court not be tainted by conflicts of interest,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said. “The Judiciary Committees have responsibility for the oversight of our judiciary and law enforcement agencies, and investigating Ginni Thomas’s conduct and Justice Thomas’s failure to recuse is an essential exercise of that oversight responsibility.”

Justice Thomas has recused himself from 54 cases since joining the Supreme Court in order to avoid the perception of potential conflicts of interest, including 17 cases involving his son. He has never recused because of a potential conflict involving his wife, and was the sole vote to keep the White House’s communications around the attempt to reject the election results secret despite his wife’s communications with the White House on related issues.

“It is hard to imagine something more damaging to the public trust in the Supreme Court than a Justice ruling on cases that could relate to their spouses’ attempts to overturn American democracy,” Bookbinder said. “An immediate investigation is needed.”...

Ginny Thomas has practiced pure hate filled venom in her insider role with the Trump White House including that of Mark Meadows. Normally, this is nothing more than bad sportsmanship, but, not when it is linked to a deadly insurrection. She definitely seems to know of the movement that was to take place on January 6th. There are people dead from that insurrection. Her emails are not simply in bad taste, they direct the President's Chief of Staff. These are people that are allies and not friends. She isn't angry at a dinner party, she is angry to the Chief of Staff in the White House.

March 26, 2022
By Danny Hakim, Jo Becker and Alan Feuer

Two days after the 2020 election, (click here) Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, texted an old friend, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump.

She sent messages that had been making the rounds on pro-Trump sites, where anger over the election echoed her own raw feelings, including this passage: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”

Then she added of this fanciful, if chilling, set of conspiracy theories: “I hope this is true.”

She texted Mr. Meadows again the next day. “Do not concede,” she wrote. “It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.”

The messages were among a flurry of text traffic between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Meadows that was revealed this past week, part of a trove of documents previously turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Ms. Thomas has openly opposed the committee and called for Republicans who serve on it to be expelled from the House Republican conference.)...

It is time for Americans to get busy and bring back enforcement of civil rights in the USA.

There are legislators that need guidance in deciding some issues. The LGBT community is a minority community in the USA. They need other Americans to join them in affirming the right of marriage to their partners. This civil right no longer has to be debated because there is a significant history of couples wanting to be married for their security and well being.

Marriage elevates a partner in life to husband and/or wife. There is a great deal of security in that including being able to attend to an ill married partner. There are enormous legal reasons for marriage to have a broader definition as to whom is married and protected by law in the USA. 

The opposition of these civil rights only seek to cause harm to individual Americans by making marriage an exclusive club for heterosexuals engaging in having and supporting a family. That level of hatred of "the other" is dangerous and irresponsible of a democracy.

Every relationship that lasts and is full of love needs protecting under the law. The Senate bill is important and should be passed without debate or question. The fact the Republicans will demand 60 votes for passage is a form of hatred and political pandering to those that see marriage as an exclusive club defined by religious prejudice.

November 16, 2022
By Amy B Wang

The Senate on Wednesday (click here) advanced the Respect for Marriage Act, which would enshrine marriage equality into federal law, clearing the way for the bill’s final passage in the chamber this week.

In a 62-to-37 vote, senators agreed to end debate on the bill and advance it. Twelve Republicans joined all 50 members of the Democratic caucus to vote in support of the bill, surpassing the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.

Democrats have warned since June that federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, as well as other rights, could be at risk after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years had guaranteed the right to an abortion in the United States.

“Today, the Senate is taking a truly bold step forward in the march towards greater justice, greater equality, by advancing the Respect for Marriage Act,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote Wednesday. “It’s a simple, narrowly tailored, but exceedingly important piece of legislation that will do so much good for so many Americans. It will make our country a better, fairer place to live.”...