Crooked Media - What A Day: Ginni and juice

I guess we’re gonna just keep this judicial corruption train a-rollin’. 
 

• At this point, Clarence Thomas has other people’s money coming out of his eyeballs. But this time, the paper trail doesn’t lead back to Harlan Crow, it leads back to a different evil rich guy. A new report shows that conservative judicial activist and co-chair of the massively influential Federalist Society Leonard Leo (we’re all familiar with Leo Leo around these parts) arranged for Thomas’s MAGA-maniac wife Ginni to be paid tens of thousands of dollars about a decade ago for “consulting,” and specified that her name be intentionally omitted from the paperwork. 
   

• In January 2012, Leo instructed then-Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway (nice to see you again, Kellyanne) to bill a nonprofit group under his advisory and use that money to pay Ginni Thomas. 2012 was a notable year, too, because the nonprofit group in question, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a massively-consequential voting-rights case. Leo reportedly told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni another $25,000, but underscored that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.” Yowza. So Leo arranged for in total, an estimated $100,000 to be paid to the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court Justice from a nonprofit which had business before the Court. (Thomas, naturally, ruled exactly how Leo wanted and paid him to…)

• So how does Leonard Leo explain this? Well, he said that Ginni provided “consulting work” that involved “gauging public attitudes and sentiment,” (lol, okay, sure) but the work had nothing to do with the NPO’s business before the court. And what about the intentional omission of Ginni’s name from paperwork? Leo said it was to protect her “privacy” because of “how disrespectful, malicious, and gossipy people can be.” Again, lol. Kellyanne Conway, who would eventually become one of disgraced former president Trump’s senior White House advisers, did not respond for comment. Miss you, girl!

All of this judicial horror once again asks the question: IS ANYONE GOING TO DO ANYTHING?

• That brings us once again back to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin. Any updates there? Any plan in motion to root out this judicial corruption that just keeps coming like a scarf out of a magician’s sleeve? Nope! Durbin continues to punt to Chief Justice John Roberts, who, we cannot stress enough, will do nothing about this. But Durbin has to mitigate the damage from an out-of-control federal bench as well. I mean, he’s not really doing that, either, but he does have a lot to consider while he’s not doing anything. 

• The Trump administration appointed hundreds of young, ultraconservative reactionary judges to the federal bench hand selected by, wouldn’t you know it, the Federalist Society. Now, conservative action networks and lobbyists are “judge shopping” or filing their cases before these right-wing nutjobs to get the rulings they want. Texas judges Matthew Kacsmaryk (the one who overturned the FDA’s 23-year approval of mifepristone) and Reed O’Connor (a George W. Bush appointee who once declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional) have been favorites for this purpose. The Justice Department has increasingly spotlighted the practice of judge-shopping, and points out that it’s part of a highly-coordinated scheme to block or overturn legislation in the few federal courts in America guaranteed to rule against a Democratic White House. 

The foundation of the United States government is supposed to be one of “checks and balances,” not secret loopholes that allow Republicans to win every fight. The judicial branch of 2023 makes it pretty clear that the founders weren’t corrupt enough to contemplate an entity like the modern GOP.

Get a load of this fucking fascist. The Florida state legislature passed a horrifying bill on Thursday that would allow the state to take transgender minors away from their families if they are found to be receiving gender-affirming care. The bill passed in the state-Senate 26-13, and the House shortly thereafter by a wide margin of 83-28. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has previously expressed support for the bill and will almost certainly sign it. A reporter asked DeSantis about his anti-trans legislation during a press conference on Friday and DeSantis responded by aggressively cutting him off and ranting about how this issue is “manufactured” and “dressed-up” and that he believes it’s really about cutting off “the private parts of a 14 or 15 year old,” which evoked applause from supporters. To be clear, gender-affirming surgeries are almost never performed on trans minors, and the only one manufacturing an issue here is DeSantis. The Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health both recommend that genital reassignment surgery should not be performed on patients under 18 years of age.

The World Health Organization announced on Friday that it no longer classifies the coronavirus pandemic as a global public-health emergency. 

Fox News sent a cease and desist to Media Matters for America, insisting it stop airing behind-the-scenes videos of Tucker Carlson. Lol, ok, sure, again.

The Russian military’s main mercenary group announced plans on Friday to pull out of Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city Russia has been trying to overtake. 

The White House has announced that Neera Tanden will be the next domestic-policy adviser. Oof. 

Job growth in the United States accelerated in April despite the Fed’s continued interest-rate hikes. 

National test scores released on Wednesday shows that American students’ grasp of U.S. history has taken a huge hit, and their knowledge of civics isn’t much better. That is…an ominous signal for the next generation of voters! Justice for the Humanities! 

During a gathering of Black Sea nations, a Ukrainian delegate punched a Russian delegate in the face after the Russian delegate snatched his Ukrainian flag to stop him from photobombing his interview. 

Jurors on Thursday viewed a taped deposition of disgraced former president Donald Trump in which he mistook a photo of E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of rape, for one of his ex-wife Marla Maples 

After meeting with the CEOs of Alphabet, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, Vice President Kamala Harris said that the Biden administration will support new regulations and/or legislation to mitigate the risk of A.I. technology.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative party suffered heavy losses in local elections on Friday, giving the opposition Labour Party a much-needed boost going into national elections last year. Sunak came to 10 Downing Street in October after a tumultuous string of Conservative Prime Ministers (Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, and Theresa May) fell like dominoes, and has pushed the Conservative Party’s austerity measures further, offering almost no relief as the nation continues to experience a crippling cost-of-living crisis. Spokespeople for the Labour Party say that they are now on track to win big in the next general election, which is corroborated by projections from Sky News and the BBC, but with the caveat that the Scottish National Party may throw a wrench in Labour’s plans depending on how it fares at the ballot box. A multi-party system, can you imagine?

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The Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip after the state’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the justices he believed that Glossip’s execution should be suspended and he should be given a new trial. 

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) signed voting accessibility and protections into law on Friday including automatic voter registration.