Headlines for Sunday, May 21, 2023
🗽There is no greater power than a community discovering the truth and working together to make sure an injustice is not repeated
🗽A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson
🗽There is no greater power than a community discovering the truth and working together to make sure an injustice is not repeated
NEWS HEADLINES FOR MAY 21, 2023
ABC News: Prosecutor suggests any indictments in Trump election investigation would likely come in August: The Atlanta prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke the law while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia seems to be suggesting that any grand jury indictments in the case would likely come in August. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter Thursday sent a letter to county Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville indicating that she plans to have much of her staff work remotely for most days during the first three weeks of August and asking that judges not schedule trials and in-person hearings during part of that time. Copied in on the letter are 20 other county officials, including Sheriff Pat Labat, the court clerk and top leaders.
Salon: Legal expert: Trump lawyers "dropping like flies" as he gets "closer and closer to an indictment": Former President Donald Trump is losing lawyers at a rapid rate ahead of multiple potential indictments. Former Trump lawyer Timothy Parlatore, who played a key role in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, announced his departure from the GOP frontrunner's legal team on Tuesday. "It's been an incredible honor to serve and work through interesting legal issues. My departure was a personal choice and does not reflect upon the case, as I believe strongly the (Justice Department) team is engaging in misconduct to pursue an investigation of conduct that is not criminal," he said in a statement.
Wisconsin Examiner: Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation: America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination post-Roe v. Wade. But the appeals court’s three-judge panel that heard oral arguments Wednesday appeared to be persuaded not by the medical consensus in this case, but by some of the evidence brought forward by plaintiffs that consists largely of anecdotes, speculation, and cherry-picked studies brought by a handful of anti-abortion medical groups and doctors.
CNBC: Will the Supreme Court strike down student loan forgiveness?: Since 1980, the total cost of four-year public and private colleges has nearly tripled. Student loan debt has ballooned to over $1.6 trillion for more than 45 million borrowers. One-third of borrowers never attain a degree, and those who graduate do so with close to $25,000 in debt. In order to help working and middle-class American borrowers the Biden administration in August announced a three-part plan to forgive a portion of student loans for borrowers. Part of his plan and campaign promise was to forgive $10,000 in student debt for tens of millions of borrowers. He upped the relief to $20,000 for borrowers who received a Pell Grant in college.
The New York Times: Opinion: Republican Leaders’ Cynical Failure to Hold George Santos Accountable: George Santos is far from the first member of Congress to be indicted while in office. Both chambers and both parties have endured their share of scandals. In 2005, for instance, F.BI. agents discovered $90,000 hidden in the freezer of Representative William Jefferson, who was under investigation for bribery. He refused to step down, wound up losing his seat in the 2008 election, and was later sentenced to 13 years in prison. James Traficant was expelled from Congress in 2002 after being convicted of bribery and racketeering. Bob Ney resigned in 2006 because of his involvement in a federal bribery scandal.
BBC: Abortion: Pressure grows on Virginia as new bans arise in the south: As North and South Carolina move to tighten abortion restrictions, women seeking to terminate pregnancies in the US south may be running out of options. As access has been severely curtailed, Virginia is poised to become the only state in the region to allow abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Washington Examiner: Thursday was the anniversary of a terrible Supreme Court case: What can we learn from it?: Not all anniversaries are good ones. Thursday marked a troubled one in American history . On this date in 1896, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. The case concerned a Louisiana law mandating segregated railway cars according to race. The 7-1 outcome declared that legally prescribed segregation did not necessarily violate the 14th Amendment. So long as the state segregated on basically equal terms for all races and did so for a reasonable purpose, then such laws would be upheld, the court decided. Hence, we get from this case the phrase “separate but equal,” which was used to justify the Jim Crow era, especially in the South.
NBC News: Republicans rack up big wins with supermajorities, but risk overreach: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t alone in learning that a legislative supermajority can be both a political blessing and a curse. The blessing: Your party gets to rack up legislative wins without any help from the opposition, bolstering your resume and potential legacy while pleasing the activists who helped you win. The curse: There are no guardrails and there’s no need for moderation, which means a legislative agenda can go too far and be unpopular with public.
The New York Times: Trump Ally Could Face Perjury Charge if He Doesn’t Cooperate With D.A.: One of Donald J. Trump’s longtime lieutenants, Allen H. Weisselberg, was recently released from the notorious Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to a tax fraud scheme. Yet Mr. Weisselberg’s legal troubles are far from over. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is now considering a new round of criminal charges against Mr. Weisselberg, 75, and this time he could be charged with perjury, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The New York Times: Georgia Prosecutor Signals August Timetable for Charges in Trump Inquiry: The Georgia prosecutor leading an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his allies has taken the unusual step of announcing remote work days for most of her staff during the first three weeks of August, asking judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse not to schedule trials for part of that time as she prepares to bring charges in the inquiry.
The Independent: Damning new evidence spells trouble for Trump in Mar-a-Lago classified documents probe: Donald Trump’s legal troubles could be hotting up after the National Archives found a trove of records proving the former president knew he shouldn’t have taken classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, according to a report. The National Archives sent a letter, obtained by CNN, to Mr Trump this week revealing that it had found 16 presidential records showing he and his top advisers were aware of the correct declassification process when he was in the White House.
Politico: The Supreme Court Is Hiding Important Decisions From You: As the Supreme Court begins to release its written opinions from its most recent term, much of the public’s attention is focused on high-profile cases on affirmative action, election law and environmental regulation. But according to Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, this narrow focus on the most headline-grabbing decisions overlooks a more troubling change in the High Court’s behavior: The justices are conducting more and more of the court’s most important business out of the public eye, through a procedural mechanism known as “the shadow docket.”
The New York Times: Supreme Court Dismisses Case on Pandemic-Era Immigration Measure: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed an attempt by Republican-led states to maintain the pandemic-era immigration measure known as Title 42. The court’s brief order was one sentence long, instructing an appeals court to dismiss the states’ motion to intervene in the case as moot. The move was almost surely prompted by the end of the health emergency that had been used to justify Title 42. In a brief filed in February, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the court that “absent other relevant developments, the end of the public health emergency will (among other consequences) terminate the Title 42 orders and moot this case.”
Georgia Public Broadcasting: Is drawing a voting map that helps a political party illegal? Only in some states: A recent unusual ruling by North Carolina's highest court has put a spotlight on the patchwork of state laws and court decisions that determine where maps of voting districts can be drawn to make elections less competitive and certain political parties more likely to win. The practice is known as partisan gerrymandering, which, courts have found, both Republicans and Democrats have deployed when in control of redistricting.
U.S. News and World Report: The Education of Ron DeSantis: Three weeks before graduation, on May 1, as students streamed in and out of the campus library at Florida’s New College in Sarasota beginning to cram for end-of-semester exams and scour its archives and research material to bolster independent projects and theses, the interim provost called one of the head librarians into a conference room and terminated her employment. Helene Gold, who was the associate dean of academic engagement for the library and had been working at New College for nearly five years, was given two hours to pack up her office and vacate the campus.
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