[What A Day]([link removed])

Thursday, June 20, 2024
BY CROOKED MEDIA

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- Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA), praising the virtue of Louisiana’s new law requiring public classrooms to display the 10 commandments. 

“I can’t wait to be sued,” [goaded]([link removed]) Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA), while signing the state’s new, first-in-the-nation law requiring public schools to display a poster-sized copy of the Bible’s 10 Commandments “printed in a large, easily readable font” in classrooms. 

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Civil liberties and religious freedom groups quickly obliged him. The ACLU [announced]([link removed]) it’s preparing a lawsuit challenging HB 71 for violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause. That’s the one stating “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”—you know, the separation of church and state. Pretty fundamental.

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The ACLU also noted different religious denominations use different wordings and interpretations of the Bible story. And lots of students don’t believe in them at all. “The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate, and it certainly should not be coercing students to submit day in and day out to unavoidable promotions of religious doctrine,” the group’s statement said. 

 

- Republicans in [Texas, Oklahoma, and Utah]([link removed]) are trying to pass laws like Louisiana’s but none have succeeded. Still, if “10 Commandments in the classroom” gives you a “televangelists of the Disco era” vibe, you’re right on! Kentucky already tried to enact a similar law in 1980. The Supreme Court [struck it down]([link removed]) for having a plainly religious, and therefore unconstitutional, purpose.

[What A Day]([link removed])

So if SCOTUS has already rejected this, why would Louisiana Republicans try again? 

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Normally, the High Court operates on a principle respecting precedent. Cases that are decided are decided, unless circumstances drastically change or the Court committed a grave and identifiable error. But this is no normal Court. Several conservative Justices implied or outright stated that Roe’s right to abortion was settled law, only to turn around and overturn it with the Dobbs decision. More recently, Justice Samuel Alito was caught on tape making [pining]([link removed]) for America as “a place of godliness.” 

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In the meantime, religious conservatives get to open up another front in their good-vs.-evil culture war. But even some conservative Republicans have [spotted]([link removed]) the irony here, pointing out that Louisiana’s public schools are an underfunded, underperforming mess where [less than half of third-graders]([link removed]) are reading on grade-level. 

The Christian conservative MAGA base reveres Donald Trump, while he [gleefully]([link removed]) [flaunts]([link removed]) nearly all of the commandments they’re performatively installing in schools. Not that they’ve ever once been moved by their own hypocrisy, but how’s that for bearing false witness?

 

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Next week, Judge Aileen Cannon is holding several [hearings]([link removed]) in the Mar-a-Lago case charging Donald Trump with dozens of counts of mishandling classified documents as well as felony obstruction. Democrats and most reputable legal experts have watched in horror as Cannon has slow-walked this case to a near-guaranteed post-election trial, all while stymying Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team at every turn. Now there’s evidence that even Cannon’s colleagues were worried about her competence to take on the trial, and possibly her fairness. 

According to The New York Times, two of Cannon’s colleagues on the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida—including its chief judge—urged her [to give up the case]([link removed]) when it was handed to her at random last year. One of the judges argued that the court’s Miami branch, where Trump was indicted, had better infrastructure to handle the case. The chief judge warned Cannon that presiding over the case would be a bad look after she intervened on Trump’s behalf after Mar-a-Lago was searched, and was reversed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.  

Cannon’s inexperience is definitely a factor here, too. Before Trump’s case, Cannon had presided over [just four federal criminal trials]([link removed]). And she had zero experience with the complex procedures that govern criminal cases involving classified documents. “But ultimately, Judge Cannon is not subject to the authority of her district court elders,” writes The Times, “Like any Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed judge, she has a life tenure and independent standing and is free to choose to ignore any such advice.”

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, [warned]([link removed]) Israel against entering a broader war with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon, even as fighting along Israel’s northern border escalates. The group also released footage of Israeli cities it said was taken by Iranian-made drones that had penetrated Israel’s air defenses.

 

The Supreme Court [announced]([link removed]) it could issue opinions Friday, adding a surprise extra day to its schedule for releasing a backlog of highly-anticipated rulings. Four opinions came out Thursday, but none of them counted among the pending cases that could alter abortion access, environmental and labor regulation, or accountability for Jan. 6 defendants including Donald Trump. 

 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. [failed to qualify]([link removed]) for CNN’s presidential debate next week, then he [declared]([link removed]) that his exclusion was “a clear violation of federal law.” Did the dead worm living in his brain tell him that? We can’t be sure. 

 

Senate Democrats [moved]([link removed]) to repeal a post-Civil War law prohibiting abortion medications from being sent through the mail. Dems say they fear Donald Trump and Republicans could revive enforcement of the Comstock Act to ban distribution of mifepristone and similar drugs. The bill is unlikely to pass, but it’s meant to bring election-year attention to abortion access (and how depraved Republican officials are). 

Philanthropist Melinda French Gates [endorsed]([link removed]) President Biden’s reelection Thursday, saying “the stakes for women and families couldn’t be higher.” It was the first time the billionaire ex of Bill Gates has endorsed a presidential candidate. Gates has committed $2 billion to organizations working for gender equality and reproductive rights. We still hate billionaires but okay, Melinda, we see you.

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Baseball great Willie Mays will receive [special honors]([link removed]) at a Big League game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Mays, who started his pre-MLB Negro League career in 1948 playing in the stadium for the Birmingham Black Barons, died this week at age 93. 

 

[What A Day]([link removed])

[You Survived Today. See You Thursday.]([link removed])

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