Day: January 20, 2023

SCOTUS Update

The Supreme Court will be putting together their agenda and a couple of the issues that could make the docket….

The Supreme Court could change the way the internet is governed next month. It will hear two cases that will challenge Section 230. Section 230 is a part of the Communications Decency Act. This act determines the rules for regulating online speech. This hearing is the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with a case fighting the 1996 act. But if the plaintiffs win, they could change how the internet is operated and used. 

Both cases being tried in front of the supreme court involve using various social media platforms by terrorists. The court will decide if the owners of these social media platforms did enough to block terrorists from using their services to spread their message and recruit new members. The social media site, Youtube, is the main focus of this trial to see if they are protected under Section 230 for the algorithmic recommendation of content. 

The first case was filed by the parents of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Paris on November 2015. Her family believes that Youtube’s algorithms push ISIS videos into people’s scope by recommending them in the suggested videos section of their platform. It is well known that many terrorist groups, including ISIS, use YouTube to recruit members to their organization from the western world. 

One Supreme Court Ruling Could Change The Internet Entirely

The next update is one that seems to be in every agenda….something religious….

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear Groff v. DeJoy, a case that could give religious conservatives an unprecedented new ability to dictate how their workplaces operate, and which workplace rules they will refuse to follow.

Yet Groff is also likely to overrule a previous Supreme Court decision that treated the interests of religious employees far more dismissively than federal law suggests that these workers should be treated.

The case, in other words, presents genuinely tricky questions about the limits of accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs. But those questions will be resolved by a Supreme Court that has shown an extraordinary willingness to bend the law in ways that benefit Christian-identified conservatives.

That could lead to a scenario in which the Court announces a new legal rule that disrupts the workplace — and that potentially places far too many burdens on non-religious employees.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23559038/supreme-court-groff-dejoy-religion-twa-hardison-workplace

I have doubt that these paleo-conserv judges will do the wrong thing.

Finally remember that famous leak of a draft of the ruling on Rowe v Wade and the ensuing investigation into that leak?

Someone is likely breathing a sigh of relief. The Supreme Court said Thursday that it can’t figure out who leaked the bombshell draft opinion of the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. “It is not possible to determine the identity of any individual who may have disclosed the document or how the draft opinion ended up with Politico,” says the court’s unsigned report, per the Washington Post. “No one confessed to publicly disclosing the document and none of the available forensic and other evidence provided a basis for identifying any individual as the source of the document.”

A separate report by Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley notes that nearly 100 court staffers were interviewed and all presented the it-wasn’t-me defense, reports NBC News. The investigation into the unprecedented leak eight months ago is not over, but the tone of the two reports suggests little hope of a breakthrough. “Investigators continue to review and process some electronic data that has been collected and a few other inquiries remain pending,” wrote Curley. “To the extent that additional investigation yields new evidence or leads, the investigators will pursue them.” Curley added that it’s unlikely anyone hacked the court’s computer system.

The country owes this person a debt of gratitude for the leak….it help show just how corrupt and uncaring these judicial slugs are towards the rights of the American people.

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“lego ergo scribo”

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Repubs Show Their True Colors

You heard and even may have voted for the GOP because of those lame promises and now there are a few incidents in state legislatures that show the true colors of the policies of the Republicans.

Take Missouri for an example.

Legislators in the Missouri House of Representatives sparred on Wednesday over a Republican amendment to regulate what types of clothing women lawmakers should be permitted to wear while at work.

House Resolution 11 was cleared by the GOP-dominated Consent and House Procedure Committee. And while it has not yet been submitted to the Missouri State Senate, passionate arguments have burbled from assemblymembers on both sides of the political aisle.

State Representative Raychel Proudie (D-53rd District), for example, lambasted the proposal as inherently absurd, overtly sexist, and unworthy of consideration:

I want you all to pay particular attention, because there’s going to be times on this floor where there are things that should not require debate and comment. I contend that these are one of these things. There are times to have your name said, to be recognized, to be called upon. This is not one of those things. There are some very serious things that are in this rule package that I think we should be debating, but instead, we are fighting again for women’s right to choose something. And this time is how she covers herself and the interpretation of someone who has no background in fashion, because – again, this isn’t a shot – it’s inappropriate to wear sequins before five o’clock telling me that I can’t wear a crispy, good St. John sweater if it has too many buttons. I spend $1200 on a suit, and I can’t wear it in the people’s House because someone who doesn’t have the range tells me that it’s inappropriate.

https://www.alternet.org/you-brought-this-floor-lady/

Typical example of the backwards thinking of the GOP.

Let’s move on to North Carolina….

It’s been almost seven years since North Carolina Republican lawmakers and then-Gov. Pat McCrory hastily concocted and enacted House Bill 2 – the infamous “bathroom bill.” It targeted transgender people for ignorant, mean-spirited and altogether absurd discrimination, while simultaneously making the state the target of numerous boycotts and countless late-night TV one-liners.

The bill was later repealed but its legacy – as an embarrassment to be forgotten as quickly as possible for most people, and as a proud rallying point for the state’s religious right fringe (and reactionary culture warriors everywhere), lingers on. Across the country, efforts to make life harder for transgender people, and even to criminalize efforts to provide them medically necessary healthcare, continue apace. North Carolina state Treasurer Dale Folwell has been an especially avid and energetic devotee of this brand of discrimination.

Now, however, one of the chief architects of the HB 2 disaster, state House Speaker Tim Moore, is back with a new and very different – but equally absurd – kind of bathroom bill, or to be more precise, bathroom rule. And this one too appears to have been fueled by the never-sated demands of right-wing social crusaders.

https://www.rawstory.com/north-carolina-bathroom-bill/

More insanity instead of reality….

Then there is the idiot in New Jersey and his view on books….

A freshman lawmaker from Wyoming has already begun efforts to remove LGBTQ+ books for youth from both school and public libraries in the state.

Republican Rep.-elect Jeanette Ward has introduced House Bill 87, which expands the definition of “child pornography” to mean “any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, cartoon, drawing, computer or computer generated image or picture, whether or not made or produced by electronic, mechanical or other means, or any other form of depiction of explicit sexual conduct.”

The bill also repeals a law that gives exemptions for those who “possess or disseminate obscene material” for activities related to schools, universities, colleges, museums, and public libraries.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/01/republican-wants-expand-definition-child-pornography-make-easier-ban-lgbtq-books/

My final report is from Texas (go figure)….

A Texas Republican wants to make foods containing material from aborted human fetuses “clearly and conspicuously labeled” — even though such products do not exist.

The proposed law, authored by state Sen. Bob Hall, says food and medicine would have to be labeled if it contained or was manufactured with human fetal tissue or if it was the product of research that used such tissue. The bill defines human fetal tissue as “tissue, cells, or organs obtained from an aborted unborn child.”

“Unfortunately, many Texans are unknowingly consuming products that either contain human fetal parts or were developed using human fetal parts,” read a statement from Hall’s office. “While some may not be bothered by this, there are many Texans with religious or moral beliefs that would oppose consumption or use of these products.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not allow the sale of foods containing human tissue.

“There are no conditions under which the FDA would consider human fetal tissue to be safe or legal for human or animal consumption,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email to HuffPost.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-republican-wants-food-made-of-aborted-fetuses-labeled_n_63c7232ae4b07c0c7df8904b

Another one of those lame ass conspiracies that only an idiot would embrace….but then this country is full of those types.

As you can see these have nothing to do with the promises made….and yet they are re-electable….what?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

David Crosby–R.I.P.

One of may favorite groups back in the day was CSN&Y…..sad news from the music world….David Crosby of that same group has died….age 81….

David Crosby, a singer-songwriter and founding member of two hugely influential and successful folk-rock groups—the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young—has died. He was 81. His family announced his death Thursday, saying only that it came after a long illness. Crosby had remained active on Twitter up until Wednesday, Variety reports, when he joked about heaven, posting, “I heard the place is overrated… cloudy.” And he’d released an album, Live at the Capitol Theater, last month. Crosby, who contributed to both groups’ intricate and sublime harmonies, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, once with each band.

Crosby grew up in Los Angeles. His father, Floyd, was an Academy Award-winning cinematographer, per Rolling Stone. He took a brief spin at college, then pursued a music career, starting as a solo act in folk clubs. He joined a band in 1964, when the Beatles had made bands all the rage, that already included Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark. Two incarnations later, the Jet Set were the Byrds, to which Crosby added his signature harmony on such hits as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” As a songwriter, he was overshadowed by McGuinn and Clark, who fired him in 1967 as tensions in the band escalated. They gave him a list of reasons, including his songwriting, and said he was impossible to work with. “All of which is partly true, I’m sure, sometimes,” Crosby later said, adding, “But it was a drag.”

At Joni Mitchell’s house a few months later, Crosby ran into Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. They sang a song together three times, learning how their voices could best blend in harmony. “When we sang that third time,” Nash later said, “my life changed.” The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album came out in May 1969 with three songs written or co-written by Crosby: “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” and “Long Time Gone.” The record was a hit, and the group began a tour after adding Neil Young. Their second concert ever was at Woodstock, in front of an audience of almost 500,000. In his memoir, Crosby wrote: “For that one moment we did something that tells you what’s possible with human beings. … Woodstock was a time where were was a prevailing feeling of harmony.”

His voice and his music will be missed….in memory of his music…..

You will be missed….and thank you for great memories.