Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

Why didn't he codify Roe when he could've?

combat veteran here...just a perspective: If you arrive armed to a place where violence is happening, prepared for violence, and you engage in violence, there is no self defense, you are in fact a willing combatant.

IF you do this without being sanctioned by a government outside of a combat zone, you are also, in fact, a terrorist. We had another word for armed civilians operating outside the military as well: insurgent.

If your recourse to the terrorist is to look up the criminal history of the victims,

it is no different than looking up the criminal past of everyone that died on 9/11 in order to justify the hijackers.

The kid was illegal all the way around, this **** is ridiculous.

News flash: If you outlaw abortions, criminalize providing gender affirming care for trans youth, dictate what educators can teach in schools, and stop people from voting, you're not the party of "limited government."

Four of twelve unions have rejected the deal the administration brokered in mid-September between rail carriers and union workers to avert a national strike. They remain concerned about their lack of paid sick days. More generally, though, they oppose a new staffing system implemented after 2018, which created record profits for the country’s main rail carriers but cost the industry 40,000 jobs, mainly among the people who actually operate the trains, leading to brutal schedules and dangerous working conditions.   

The new system, called Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR), made trains far more efficient by keeping workers on very tight schedules that leave little time for anything but work. Any disruption in those schedules—a family emergency, for example—brought disciplinary action and possible job loss. Although workers got an average of 3 weeks’ vacation and holidays, the rest of their time, including weekends, was tightly controlled, while smaller crews meant more dangerous working conditions.

Union leaders and railroad management negotiated for more than two and a half years for new contracts without success. In July, Biden established a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) to try to resolve the differences before the September 16 deadline by which the railway workers could legally strike. The PEB’s August report called for significant wage increases and health care benefits but kicked down the road the problems associated with PSR. The National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents the railroads, called the report “fair and appropriate,” but not all the unions did.

Now four of the unions are holding out for better sick leave provisions, and it is likely that the unions will all walk out together if they go. 

This threatens supply chains and the economy in general—down to the safety of water systems, since trains carry the chemicals that purify water systems—right before the holidays and as we try to stave off a recession. The deadline for agreeing to the deal is December 9. 

 This evening, President Joe Biden issued a statement calling on Congress to pass legislation to put the agreement into force to avert a “potentially crippling” railway shutdown. “Let me be clear,” he said, “a rail shutdown would devastate our economy. Without freight rail, many U.S. industries would shut down…[and] as many as 765,000 Americans—many union workers themselves—could be put out of work in the first two weeks alone. Communities could lose access to chemicals necessary to ensure clean drinking water. Farms and ranches across the country could be unable to feed their livestock.” 

“As a proud pro-labor President,” he continued, “I am reluctant to override the ratification procedures and the views of those who voted against the agreement.” He wants laws to establish paid leave and stronger protections for workers, he said, “but at this critical moment for our economy, in the holiday season, we cannot let our strongly held conviction for better outcomes for workers deny workers the benefits of the bargain they reached, and hurl this nation into a devastating rail freight shutdown.” “In this case,” he said, “where the economic impact of a shutdown would hurt millions of other working people and families—I believe Congress must use its powers to adopt this deal.” He asked lawmakers to get a bill to his desk immediately, well before December 9. 

Railway Age, a trade magazine for the rail transport agency, reported that neither side in the negotiations could find a way to avoid a work stoppage, but since neither side wanted one, they were eager to have Congress overrule the small percentage of workers who opposed the deal and impose the one most workers have accepted. That way, neither side would have to face criticism from those who oppose the deal, and they would not have to deal with a Republican House as they seek to find a solution. 

House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the House would take up a bill adopting the agreement this week. “ It is my hope that this necessary, strike-averting legislation will earn a strongly bipartisan vote, giving America’s families confidence in our commitment to protecting their financial futures,” she said. 

Meanwhile, former president Trump appears to be increasingly nervous about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigations of Trump’s theft of national security documents and incitement of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump is lashing out wildly, calling Smith, for example, “a hit man for Obama.” 

Of perhaps more concern for his lawyers was his post on his social media network saying: "When will you invade the other Presidents’ homes in search of documents, which are voluminous, which they took with them, but not nearly so openly and transparently as I did?"

Meanwhile, a reporter for ABC News spotted Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway going into the offices of the January 6th Committee. A recent book by Jon Lemire cites Trump’s query of Conway how he could have lost “to f*cking Joe Biden,” indicating he did, in fact, understand that he had lost the election. 

Committee member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said on November 20 that the committee will release to the public its report and all the evidence it has gathered “within a month.”

Now four of the unions are holding out for better sick leave provisions, and it is likely that the unions will all walk out together if they go. 

WASHINGTON — Just two years ago, DTE Energy, a Michigan-based electric utility, was still enmeshed in a court fight with federal regulators over emissions from a coal-burning power plant on the western shore of Lake Erie that ranks as one of the nation’s largest sources of climate-changing air pollution.

But in September, Gerard M. Anderson, who led DTE for the last decade, was on the South Lawn of the White House alongside hundreds of other supporters of President Biden, giving a standing ovation to the president for his success in pushing a climate change package through Congress — a law that will help accelerate the closure of the very same coal-burning behemoth, known as DTE Monroe, that his company had been fighting to protect.

Mr. Anderson’s position reflects a fundamental shift among major electric utilities nationwide as they deploy their considerable clout in Washington: After years of taking steps like backing dark-money groups to sue the government to block tighter air pollution rules, DTE and a growing number of other utilities have joined forces to speed the transition away from fossil fuels.

Their new stance is driven less by evolving ideology than the changing economics of renewable energy, fueled in part by the sheer amount of money the federal government is putting on the table to encourage utilities to move more quickly to cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy like solar and wind.

In that way, it is a leading example of the effects of the Biden administration’s willingness to engage in what is often called industrial policy: providing public funding to bolster critical industries in support of the nation’s broad strategic goals.

But if industrial policy initiatives can provide powerful incentives to corporations to pursue those goals, they also inevitably raise questions about whether they are constructed in ways that reward companies for taking actions that market forces would lead them to take anyway — an issue that hovers over the legislation embraced by both Mr. Biden and the electric utilities.

With the passage of the climate and economic policy bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act, DTE and other big utilities like American Electric Power, NextEra Energy and Southern Company stand to benefit from the largest package of subsidies ever granted to the industry.

It is a 10-year, $220 billion hodgepodge of tax breaks and major changes in federal tax law and other climate-change-inspired inducements that amount to a kind of lobbyist wish list never before considered even remotely possible by the industry.

With so much on the line financially, the industry ramped up spending on lobbyists to help push the package through the House and the Senate. It has also directed at least $17 million in campaign contributions to lawmakers since last year, targeting in particular key players like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader, and Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, whose consent was vital to getting the measure passed.

The legislation will do more than just accelerate efforts to meet climate change goals, according to an analysis by The New York Times of the 273-page law.

Buried in the hundreds of pages are carefully crafted provisions that will eventually help electric utilities gain additional profits for years to come, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars per year for some of the larger players, according to Wall Street analysts.

In the course of its two-year lobbying effort, the industry managed to help knock out of the legislation measures that would have mandated actions to curb pollution, largely leaving only those provisions that rewarded it for doing so — in effect securing more carrots while tossing aside the stick.

“Let’s be honest — these guys can say all they want about the environment and how we are all aligned,” said Shahriar Pourreza, who has spent two decades studying the utility industry for Wall Street firms. “But you strip back the layers of the onion and this is also a major long-term growth opportunity for these utilities.”

A federal judge on Monday rejected former President Donald Trump’s argument that he has “absolute immunity” in response to a lawsuit alleging he committed civil rights violations in his attempts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.

The lawsuit, filed by the NAACP, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and others, accuses the former president and the Republican National Committee of efforts to disenfranchise voters through targeted harassment, intimidation and efforts to prevent the complete counting and certification of ballots after the 2020 election.

The ruling notes that Trump’s lawyers previously argued that he is “absolutely immune” from damages for his actions within the “outer perimeter” of his official responsibilities as president.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington sided with the civil rights groups, writing that Trump’s conduct after the 2020 election was “purely political and therefore well beyond the contours of presidential immunity.”

“If former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count, as plaintiffs allege here, such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution," Sullivan wrote. "For these reasons, the court concludes that former President Trump is not immune from monetary damages in this suit."

Lash wrote:

Why didn't he codify Roe when he could've?

The Supreme Court was quite clear that it is a matter for the states

"It's inconsiderate at a minimum," New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan scolded defense lawyers, who at midnight Sunday had filed 18 new exhibits they'd hoped to show jurors on the last day of their case.

Absolutely wrong.

1. The SCOTUS is part of the Federal Gov't.

2. Roe was argued that STATE laws against abortion were unconstitutional due "equal access provisions of the Constitution".

How in the hell did you manage to get this soooooooo wrong?

Right off the bat, there were no federal laws against abortion to rule against.

The Supreme Court ruled against state with restrictive laws and made them responsible for changing their laws and regulations to allow all women the right to abortion.