USA News and Discussions

[firestar464]

Damn so many Republicans resigning to spite their own party.

[caltrek]

Earlier this morning, I was listening to live arguments, broadcast by MSNBC, before the Supreme Court on the case described below.

The Supreme Court Abortion Pill Case Is Based on Imaginary Patients and Shoddy Science
by Madison Pauly
March 25, 2024

Extract:

(Mother Jones ) FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine….aims to limit the availability of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug regimen commonly used in medication abortions. ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom), on behalf of the anti-abortion doctors, accuses the FDA of “betraying women and girls” when it approved mifepristone 23 years ago by overlooking potentially harmful side effects and by later making it easier to get. … Now, with Tuesday’s case, the Supreme Court could broadly limit access to mifepristone—even in blue states that protect people’s right to end their pregnancy.
…
In their lawsuit, the anti-abortion doctors contend the FDA put patients in danger... The data isn’t on their side: Last month, a study in the journal Nature Medicine looked at 6,000 medication abortions provided by virtual clinics, and found that about 98 percent of them were effective... without any additional intervention, and 99.8 percent were “not followed by serious adverse events,” as my colleague Julianne McShane reported.

…. In their original complaint, the doctors argued that the FDA hadn’t had enough evidence to approve the drug or loosen regulations on it, and they cited flimsy research to suggest mifepristone was harmful. Those claims have been roundly debunked by mainstream medical associations, which explain that mifepristone is backed by decades of data. Even before it came to the United States, the drug was used for years for abortions in Europe; since its approval here in 2000, around 6 million people in the US have taken it. As the New York Times reports, more than 100 scientific studies have concluded that mifepristone is a safe way to end a pregnancy.

Meanwhile. it turns out that some of the studies cited by the doctors weren’t scientific at all. One, relied on in (judge Matthew) Kacsmaryk’s decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) was based on anonymous blog posts from a site called “Abortion Changes You.” Last month, a journal retracted three other papers cited by ADF in the case, explaining that an independent review had found “fundamental problems,” “incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors,” and “misleading presentations.” Sage, the studies’ publisher, reported that nearly all their authors had affiliations with anti-abortion advocacy groups yet had not disclosed any conflicts of interest.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... e-court/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Louisiana passes raft of bills to increase mass incarceration of adults and juveniles

A quick history lesson

Louisiana’s prison system, like that of many southern states, traces its modern origins to the abolition of slavery. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, banned slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime,” opening the door for states to use the criminal justice system as a legal way to oppress African Americans and extract value from forced labor.

An array of laws designed to criminalize Black people, called Black Codes, were enacted throughout the South in the wake of emancipation. A central element of these laws charged unemployed or unhoused Black people with “vagrancy,” a crime punishable by a term of labor if a fine was not paid. Thomas W. Conway, the Freedmen's Bureau commissioner for Louisiana, described how this system, known as convict leasing, was abused in Louisiana:

“In the city of New Orleans last summer, under the orders of the acting mayor of the city, Hugh Kennedy, the police of that city conducted themselves towards the freedmen, in respect to violence and ill usage, in every way equal to the old days of slavery; arresting them on the streets as vagrants, without any form of law whatever, and simply because they did not have in their pockets certificates of employment from their former owners or other white citizens.

”I have gone to the jails and released large numbers of them, men who were industrious and who had regular employment; yet because they had not the certificates of white men in their pockets they were locked up in jail to be sent out to plantations…”

One of these plantations later became a prison under state control: the infamous “Angola” Louisiana State Penitentiary. To this day, prisoners at Angola are forced to perform grueling agricultural labor, supervised by armed guards on horseback.

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Ruling makes Florida new epicentre in US abortion battle

1 hour ago

Florida's Supreme Court delivered two rulings on abortion on Monday, with competing consequences.

First, the court upheld the state's right to prohibit abortion, giving the green light for a six-week ban to take effect on 1 May.

The near-total ban will block almost all access in the US South, where Florida had been something of a haven for those seeking abortions, surrounded by states that had already implemented six-week or total bans on the procedure.

The ruling was applauded by national anti-abortion activists, many of whom see a six-week ban as the gold standard for abortion policy. The decision is a "victory for unborn children", said Katie Daniel, Florida policy director of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America.

But in a 4-3 vote, the justices also approved a November ballot initiative that, if approved, would overturn the six-week ban and enshrine broad abortion access in the state's constitution.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68719492

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

Arizona's supreme court says Civil War-era law can be enforced to ban abortions

Wednesday 10 April 2024 01:29, UK



Arizona is to ban nearly all abortions after its supreme court ruled a law from the Civil War-era could be enforced.

It means an 1864 law criminalising abortions except when a mother's life is at risk - with no exceptions for pregnancies due to rape or incest - will become enforceable.

Doctors who perform the procedure could be sentenced to between two to five years in prison.

Democrats and President Joe Biden blamed the ruling on Donald Trump, who appointed three US Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the universal right to an abortion in 2022.

Mr Biden said on X the "cruel" ban was "a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women's freedom".

https://news.sky.com/story/arizonas-sup ... s-13111888

[firestar464]

6 ex-Mississippi officers in 'Goon Squad' torture case sentenced in state court

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/6- ... r-BB1lnqmM

[Time_Traveller]

US 'considering' dropping prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Joe Biden says

Wednesday 10 April 2024 18:20, UK

The US is "considering" dropping its prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Joe Biden has said.

It comes following a request from Australia, where Mr Assange is originally from. The country's prime minister Anthony Albanese backed a motion in February calling for his return to Australia.

When asked about the request by reporters at the White House on Wednesday, the US president said: "We're considering it".

Mr Assange's lawyer described the comments as "encouraging".

The 52-year-old faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.

https://news.sky.com/story/us-consideri ... s-13112352

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

America’s 806 Billionaires Are Now Richer Than Half the Population Combined—a Lot Richer
by Michale Mechanic
April 11, 2024

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Are you better off now than you were when Donald Trump was president? That’s a dumb question for Republicans to pose, because the answer by most measures would be, “Oh, heck yes!” But plenty of people feel otherwise, either because they are down a right-wing rabbit hole or because the poorer half of the population wasn’t doing great before the pandemic and they’re still really not doing so well.

You know who is? Billionaires.

As of April 1, according to the latest analysis of Forbes data by the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), the combined wealth of the nation’s 806 billionaires—their population rises and falls with the markets—had reached a record $5.8 trillion. That’s more than $7 billion a head and nearly double their total holdings in late 2017, when congressional Republicans unilaterally rammed through a package of widely unpopular tax “reforms” skewed in favor of America’s most affluent.

Even after adjusting for the high inflation that has plagued us these past few years, billionaires have seen a 57 percent gain in their collective wealth since the so-called Trump tax cuts took effect. That legislation was a feeding frenzy for corporate lobbyists.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... equality/

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

UGH

[wjfox]

Biden cancels another $7.4bn in student loans for more than 277,000

21 hours ago

US President Joe Biden has announced that he is cancelling $7.4bn (£5.9bn) in student debt for more than 277,000 people.

This comes days after he announced a proposal to help millions of Americans pay off student loans.

The "Plan B" aims to fulfil a campaign promise ahead of November's election.

To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has cancelled $153bn (£122bn) in debt for 4.3 million people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68797500



Reuters

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

^^^ A very important point: capitalism as practiced now, or at least as practiced in the last part of the twentieth century, depended on the internalization of profits and the externalization of costs.

[weatheriscool]

The Supreme Court effectively abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states
https://www.vox.com/scotus/24080080/sup ... ves-matter

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South.

For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016.

The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

[weatheriscool]