- Racist “Race Scientist” Charles Murray defending fellow racist Harlan Crow
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Now that the dust has settled, let’s dig into the dueling medication-abortion rulings.
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On Friday, Trump-appointed Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk invalidated the FDA’s 23-year-long approval of mifepristone, one of the most commonly-used medications to terminate pregnancy, in the most consequential abortion-related judicial decision since the Dobbs ruling last June. But just minutes later a federal judge in Washington state issued a contradictory order, prohibiting the FDA from restricting the pill’s availability in any way in most states that allow abortion. So…what???
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The two rulings both ostensibly bind the FDA, but their incompatible demands make a rapid legal showdown in the Supreme Court likely. The order handed down by the federal judge in Washington, Thomas Rice, only applies to the 16 states and the District of Columbia, which sued the Biden administration in February to protect access to mifepristone. But it’s unclear how FDA can preserve an approval in some states without effectively leaving its nationwide approval in place. Kacsmaryk’s rule, on the other hand, would apply nationwide.
- Kacsmaryk also put his decision on hold for seven days to allow the Biden administration to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Today, the Justice Department asked Judge Rice to clarify what DOJ’s obligations would be “in the event that the [Texas] order takes effect and stays the approval of mifepristone.” It also asked the Fifth Circuit to pause Kacsmaryk’s order until higher courts resolve the underlying legal issues. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said in a statement that the Biden Administration intends to do everything it could to maintain access to abortion pills “not just in a week—but moving forward, period.”
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Reactions to the rulings have been swift and exacting on both sides of the aisle.
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A chorus of Democratic lawmakers, legal analysts, and abortion rights advocates emerged imploring the Biden administration and the FDA to ignore the Texas ruling. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told CNN that right-wing judges have undermined their own legitimacy and that of the court system through “deeply partisan and unfounded” rulings. The Republican news machine immediately clutched their pearls in feigned horror, but then Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, echoed her assertions, saying that there is “no way this decision has a basis in law,” and also called for the Biden administration to ignore it. Even Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said in an interview with CNN she believes that the Texas decision should be ignored: “This is an FDA approved drug. Whether you agree with its usage or not, that's not your decision. That is the FDA’s decision.” The Biden administration, by contrast, says it will not ignore any court order (whatever that means in practice, when two orders conflict like this).
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The Texas decision has been widely condemned by almost every major health organization and drug manufacturer, as it flies in the face of medical consensus on both the safety of mifepristone and proper, science-based processes for determining what pharmaceuticals should be available to patients. On Monday, the Justice Department appealed the Texas decision, arguing that challengers had no right to file a lawsuit since they were not personally harmed by the abortion pill (and repeatedly provided no evidence that any such adverse effects could be conclusively attributed to mifepristone). DOJ lawyers say that the ruling “upended decades of reliance by blocking FDA’s approval…and depriving patients of access to this safe and effective treatment, based on the court’s own misguided assessment of the drug’s safety.”
If the Texas ruling stands, and if (in the worst-case scenario) the Supreme Court upholds it, the new precedent set for rogue partisan judges with zero knowledge of medicine to be able to reject approvals for drugs as they see fit is bone-chilling. The devastating effects of a minority-ruled judiciary which flatly disregards scientific consensus to appease frothing right-wing activists has only just begun. (Pack the Court? Just a thought.)
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Looking for a podcast that caters to both horror buffs and scaredy-cats? Look no further than Ruined, the newest addition to Crooked Media! Hosted by horror aficionado and Lovett or Leave It head writer Halle Kiefer and her squeamish friend and co-host, Alison Leiby, Ruined unpacks a different horror movie every week, from bone-chilling slashers to spine-tingling supernatural flicks. And for those of you like Alison, who are too scared to watch, fear not – Halle will ruin the movie for you!
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Last week, the U.S government uncovered evidence of one of the most significant leaks of highly classified materials in recent history. New details have emerged about the disastrous leak, and reports show that the saga began on a Discord channel (an encrypted messaging platform) where members shared memes, jokes, and a love of racism. Many of the hundreds of documents were labeled top secret and included details about the war in Ukraine, details of American subversion of Russian military plans, and intercepted communications about American allies like Israel and South Korea, and appear to have been in the possession of the group for months. The FBI and the Justice Department are now on the hunt for the leaker, and to understand how dozens of images that reportedly show secret documents surfaced online. At the request of the Defense Department, an official federal probe launched Friday. A spokesperson for the Pentagon said on Sunday night that the department is reviewing and assessing the validity of the leaked documents, which appear to contain “sensitive and highly-classified material.”
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Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is under fire for advising young men not to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to risk of cardiac-related death, after apparently stripping data from underlying reports that proves COVID-19 itself is a much, much greater cardiac risk factor.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has missed 58 Senate votes since she was hospitalized with shingles, and her role on the Judiciary Committee means that Biden cannot confirm any federal judges without all Dem Senators present. Truly infuriating stuff! It’s almost like you should not continue your role as one of the most powerful people in America when you are enfeebled!
Over 90 employees at a Michigan paper mill have reportedly been infected with a fungus found in the soil of decaying wood. Over a dozen of the workers required hospitalization.
Five people were killed and eight were wounded in a shooting at a bank in Louisville, KY, on Monday. The shooter was reportedly a 25-year-old man who had previously worked at the bank, and police confirmed that he had been shot and killed by law enforcement following the attack.
Irish nationalists threw petrol bombs at an armored police car ahead of President Biden’s arrival to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Accords today, the agreement ending more than three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
The federal government is expanding its nearly two-year-long investigation into allegations of misconduct by Trump-appointed DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari and others responsible for deleting Secret Service text messages from January 6, 2021.
Led by Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) 11 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they will hold a hearing looking into “the Supreme Court’s ethical standards,” in the wake of reports of Justice Clarence Thomas’s possible millions of dollars in gifts from a Republican billionaire over the past twenty years.
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The saga of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepting millions of dollars in free vacations and private jet rides from Republican billionaire mega-donor Harlan Crow continues. Over the weekend, Washingtonian magazine reported that Crow has an art collection that includes Nazi memorabilia, because of course he does. Crow’s collection reportedly includes two of Hitler’s paintings, a signed copy of his infamous manifesto Mein Kampf, and has a garden filled with statues of some of the most reviled leaders of the 20th century. In 2014, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News visited Crow’s home, where he avoided questions about the garden of dictator statues (as one does) but when pressed about the elephants in the room, he described the collection as “a historical nod to the facts of man’s inhumanity to man.” Hmmm okay…the rest of us are able to learn about that history without erecting statues to the men in question or collecting swastika-embossed linens.
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