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America's Highest Court Remains Lawless - The Monday AM Quickie 7/3/2023

By Robert Hitt —

Hello folks! As Corey told you, you’re stuck with me for all of July. I’m back from a month of organizing with the Massachusetts Nurses Association. I had a lot of edifying conversations in  June, but the thing that’s stuck with me the most is the horrifying prevalence of violence against health care workers. Despite making up only 12 percent of the workforce, health care workers experience 75 percent of all workplace assaults. - Robert

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THE BIG NEWS

SCOTUS Greenlights Discrimination Against Queer Folks, Strikes Down Student Loan Forgiveness

The conservative majority of the Supreme Court legislated from the bench last week, striking down affirmative action, greenlighting business to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, and striking down the Biden administration's attempt to forgive some student loan debt.

In what might be the most brazen partisan power grab by the Roberts Court to date, the conservative majority rubber stamped cases with apparently false filings and fake plaintiffs manufactured by conservative advocacy groups and states.

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, Christian website designer Lorie Smith wanted to legally refuse to create a wedding website for same-sex couple Stewart and Mike. However, The New Republic uncovered that Stewart, who allegedly solicited Smith’s services, swears to have never filed a request for them, and that he was, in fact, a married straight man and a web designer himself. Conveniently, “Stewart’s” request appeared 24 hours after Smith had filed a lawsuit where such evidence would be useful. Adding to the bizarreness, Stewart alleges that nobody from either legal team had reached out to confirm the validity of the request, despite his correct number being submitted in court filings since 2017.

As David Dayen explains in the American Prospect, the case against student loan forgiveness was similarly fabricated. The majority decided that harm to Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) was enough to confer standing to Missouri to sue the Biden administration over student loan forgiveness, despite MOHELA not being plaintiff in the case, being a privately run student loan servicer independent from the state, and being set to gain monetarily from forgiveness.

To justify his ruling in this case, of course, Roberts used the made up “major questions doctrine,” whose only guiding logic is whatever the conservative justices want to do.

L.A. Hotel Workers Strike, Turning Up the Heat for SoCal’s Hot Labor Summer

Several thousand hotel workers went on strike Sunday in Los Angeles and the surrounding area, reports the New York Times. Workers are demanding immediate raises of $5 per hour with $3 increases each year for three years to account for the high costs of living SoCal. This is the latest of several massive labor action in and around L.A. this year, including the writer’s strike (which may soon be joined by an actors’ strike) halting television and film production, a 3-day walkout from school workers and teachers in May, and dockworkers shut down America’s busiest ports in L.A. and Long Beach before coming to a tentative agreement with management mid-June. We love to see it, let the Hot Labor Summer continue.

Afghan Families Say UK Special Forces Executed 80 Civilians

Between 2010 and 2013, three British Special Air Service (SAS) units may have summarily killed 80 Afghan civilians, according to lawyers representing bereaved families presenting to a public inquiry. Per the Guardian:

One of the elite soldiers is believed to have “personally killed” 35 Afghans on a single six-month tour of duty as part of an alleged policy to terminate “all fighting-age males” in homes raided, “regardless of the threat they posed”.

The British Ministry of Defense wants evidence pertaining to the killings to be heard in secret. Kudos to the British press for fighting those moves.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Emails Show Trump Attorneys Coaching Fake Electors In emails released by the Jan. 6th Committee, Kenneth Chesebro, a member of Trump’s legal team, instructed two Nevada residents on how to become fake electors. via Talking Points Memo.
  • Pence Denies Pressuring Governors to Overturn Election Results Nearly-hung Pence made a call to Arizona governor Doug Ducey at Trump’s behest after the 2020 election. via NBC News.
  • Hundreds Arrested in France Over the Weekend in Riots Over Police Killing Over 45,000 police officers have been deployed across France after rioting sparked by the police killing of Nahel M. on Tuesday, a 17-year-old of North African heritage. via France 24.
  • NIH Official Told COVID Scientists He Uses Gmail to Avoid FOIA David M. Morens, an advisor to Anthony Fauci, stated in an email exchange that he uses gmail to avoid FOIA requests. No “plandemic”-style shadiness was reported, but a bad look in any case. via the Intercept.
  • Twitter Imposes Limits on Reading Tweets On Saturday, Chief Twit Musk announced that daily allotments of tweets would be limited to 600 per unverified account and 6,000 per verified account. He said this was to “address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation,” but others have speculated the limits are due to negotiations over Google Cloud usage. via AP and Insider.

SOME NUMBER

18

That’s how many states and localities will raise their minimum wage this summer, including Oregon, Connecticut, and  Washington D.C.  via the Economic Policy Institute.

ON THE SHOW TODAY

7/3: The MR Crew are off today so we're coming to you with a special mid-year best of! In an episode from February 2018, Sam spoke with the late, great Daniel Ellsberg about his book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

The Kardashians Aren't Real And There's A Reason Why

Looking unnatural is becoming a status symbol.

Elon Musk Stan Calls In To Debate Sam Seder

Think about this a little more caller friend.

PARTING WORDS

“[Resuming student debt payments] will be devastating. I have been able to afford my insulin and diabetic supplies since they stopped the payments [but] now I will have to cut back. And I am type one. Without insulin, I die.”

-- Shannon, 48 of Texas, one of 101 student loan holders who contributed to a compilation of testimonies for the Debt Collective, a debtors’ union fighting for the elimination of student debt. via Medium.

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