The following article, ‘Utterly Unacceptable’: After Helping Trump Win, Elon Musk Makes Crucial Endorsement For Senate Majority Leader, was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

Despite a landslide victory for Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” agenda last week, a ferocious battle has suddenly broken out in the U.S. Senate over who will be the chamber’s new leader, with some saying outgoing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to thwart the plans of the president-elect. “What the hell …

Continue reading ‘Utterly Unacceptable’: After Helping Trump Win, Elon Musk Makes Crucial Endorsement For Senate Majority Leader ...

13 July 2020

The study surveyed 1,180 participants in Israel about their knowledge and attitudes regarding climate change and its effects on the environment.

Colorado Democrats looked set to maintain their supermajority in the state House as of Wednesday afternoon, though they fell short of reaching the same threshold in the Senate.

Jun 26, 2024

Air-source heat pump adoption will increase heating costs for approximately half of all Massachusetts households due to high electricity prices, according to a new town-level spatial analysis by researchers at Harvard University. Concerns around increased energy bills could challenge Massachusetts’ ability to achieve its ambitions for decarbonization of buildings across the state.

In Ireland, four out of five pregnant women are iron deficient by their third trimester. Researchers found that over 80% of women experience iron deficiency

Report: Majority of Minnesotans Overweight or Obese

The Supreme Court of Ghana reinstates the ruling NPP's parliamentary majority, impacting the upcoming December 7 elections.

It further revealed that 73 per cent of urban Indian parents surveyed want the data protection law to ensure mandatory parental consent is sought for children under 18

In Dearborn, where nearly half of the 1,10,000 residents are of Arab descent, Vice-President Kamala Harris received over 2,500 fewer votes than Mr. Trump

IHCL plans to expand the Tree of Life portfolio from its current 19 properties (plus 2 under development) to 100 properties by 2030

Right-wing outfits allegedly warning that under no circumstances will Muslim families be allowed to settle in the predominantly Hindu locality

With mounting voter dissatisfaction over scandals and economic pressures, Ishiba’s position as prime minister is now in jeopardy, facing calls for new leadership.

Assuming full acceptance of open offer, the stake of Ambuja Cements will stand at 72.8%, said a notice filed with the CCI on Friday

Acting Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and two others were proposed by lawmakers as the three candidates for the July 20 Presidential election

The NDA today is a coalition of contradictions, says senior RJD leader; he says the parties of the INDIA bloc will impact the political arena more powerfully in the coming days as there has been a revival of the collective in politics

A majority of Israeli-Jews (51.7%) supported annexation and 8.8% of Israeli-Arabs supported it, while 27.9% of Israeli-Jews opposed it and 51.9% of Israel-Arabs were against it.

Carlyle Group and existing promoters of animal healthcare company SeQuent Scientific Ltd. have announced that CA Harbor Investments, an affiliated ent

A full 94 percent of the dead zones in the world’s oceans lie in regions expected to warm at least 2 degrees Celsius by the […]

The post Climate change expected to expand majority of ocean dead zones appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

; Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court is no stranger to controversy, but it still gets higher marks in public opinion polls than the other branches of government. Now though, for the first time in memory, the court is not just split along ideological lines, but along political lines as well: All the conservatives are Republican appointees, all the liberals Democratic appointees. That division could put the court in the crosshairs of public opinion if it is forced to make decisions that affect the 2020 election.

Chief Justice John Roberts has worked hard to persuade the public that the justices are fair-minded legal umpires--not politicians in robes. That image got pretty scuffed up earlier this month when the conservative court majority shot down accommodations for the coronavirus that would have allowed six more days for absentee ballots to be received in Wisconsin's election for 500 school board seats, over 100 judicial seats, and thousands of other state and local positions.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the COVID-19 pandemic had become a public health crisis. Encouraged by local officials, about a million more voters than usual requested absentee ballots, and local officials were unable to keep up with the surge. To mitigate that problem, the lower courts allowed an extra six days for election officials to receive completed absentee ballots.

But the day before the election, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling by a 5-to-4 vote. The result was that tens of thousands of people who had not yet even received their absentee ballots were forced to, as the dissenters put it, choose between their health and their right to vote.

The TV footage of people wearing masks waiting for hours to vote at the very few precincts that were open amid the pandemic was, to say the least, not a good look. Health officials in Milwaukee have since identified six voters and one poll worker who appear to have contracted the virus during the election.

The majority opinion was unsigned, so no one knows who the principal author was. But we do know some things.

First, the emergency appeal in the case came through the justice assigned to that region of the country, Brett Kavanaugh. Typically, when a justice refers a case to the full court, he or she writes a memo about the issues, likely with a recommendation. Kavanaugh almost certainly did that. But other justices would then chime in. And in a voting case, Chief Justice Roberts assuredly would have played a pivotal role.

"John Roberts' fingerprints are on this as chief justice and as someone who has owned this area of the law," says Joan Biskupic, a Supreme Court biographer and CNN legal analyst who is the author of a critically acclaimed biography about Roberts.

Indeed, Roberts was invested in voting-rights law as far back as 1982 when he was a staffer in the Reagan administration. Back then, he led the effort to narrow the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. When that failed, President Reagan signed the broad extension of the law, rejecting advice to veto it. But years later, on the Supreme Court, Roberts wrote the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, gutting a key provision of that law.

So, it was no surprise when the conservative majority refused to make even a modest accommodation to the pandemic. What was surprising was the tone of the opinion. Critics of the opinion, including some Roberts defenders, called the language "callous," "cynical," and "unfortunate."

In fact, the word "pandemic" appears not once in the court's unsigned opinion. Rather, the majority sought to portray the issue before the court as a "narrow, technical question." The majority said the lower court had overstepped the Supreme Court's established rule that courts should "ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election."

The dissenters replied that the court's treatment of the current situation as ordinary "boggles the mind." Writing for the dissenters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opined that "a voter cannot deliver...a ballot she has not yet received. Yet tens of thousands of voters who timely requested absentee ballots" are being asked to do just that.

"I do think there's something to this idea that we need to stick with the rules even in the context of an emergency," says law professor Rick Hasen, an election expert at the University of California, Irvine.

He and others see the legal question before the court as a close call, but say the decision was, at the very least, tone deaf in light of the reality of a pandemic.

Hasen says that the court could have recognized "the inhumanity of making people vote in this way," but that instead the tone of the opinion was "really dismissive of the entire threat facing these voters."

Chief Justice Roberts has, on some occasions tried to bridge the two wings of the court, in a couple of big cases siding with the court's liberals, or sometimes trying to fashion a compromise. But as Hasen observes, "there really is not any case I can think of involving elections where Roberts has forged a larger consensus."

Roberts must have anticipated at least some of the outcry over the Wisconsin decision. He is, after all, an astute political observer.

But as any student of the court knows, Roberts is a reliable, and often leading member of the conservative majority when it comes to a whole host of issues involving campaigns, voting and elections. That includes decisions he has written striking down laws aimed at limiting the role of big money in campaigns and decisions upholding partisan gerrymanders. Moreover voting rights in particular "is an area of the law where John Roberts has not been deterred by anticipated public criticism," says Biskupic, his biographer.

For the chief, says Biskupic, "It's not just voting rights. It's a broader overlay of representation" in his decisions, a pattern that "often will favor Republicans, but more fundamentally, it seems to favor entrenched powers, the status quo in many states, against ordinary citizens. And we certainly saw that in Wisconsin."

Uncertainties around COVID-19 remain, with states facing decisions about when to reopen and what size of public gatherings are safe. As November inches closer, those decisions could affect the 2020 election. Who gets to vote, when, and how, are unanswered questions and states are surely exploring different plans to keep voters safe. But Roberts' Supreme Court may be the ultimate arbiter of what changes and accommodations to voting are allowed.

The majority opinion "tried to tell the public that this was a very small decision," says Biskupic. "But as the dissent pointed out, it laid down a very serious marker about how voters will be accommodated in the middle of the coronavirus crisis."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The pathways for removal of dissolved phosphorus within biofiltration systems have been examined in a new study. Over 95% of phosphorus was removed over the study period, with the majority of phosphorus stored within plants. The researchers say the findings demonstrate the value of using suitable plant species within biofiltration systems to treat polluted water.

70 percent of Americans surveyed by Zillow Mortgages said they would not abandon their home buying plans should interest rates rise to 4.5%

Interview with drug policy reform activist Tom Angell, founder of Marijuana Majority.

The outcry for the fashion business to change its ways regarding women's plus-size clothing is getting louder.

More Than 600,000 Wine Consumers and Professionals from 105 Countries Selected the Finalists of the World's Largest Wine Competition.

The deal between India-based Toonz and Ireland’s Telegael brings many strategic synergies, making this a complementary venture for both companies.

TIMES-SHAMROCK COMMUNICATIONS Alternative WFUZ (ALT 92.1)/WILKES BARRE-SCRANTON has kicked off MAY with a new weeknight show, "MAJORITY RULES," allowing listeners to control the … more

THE Liberal Democrats came close today to snatching Winchester and Chandler's Ford in what would have been a stunning victory.

Hero Cycles picked up majority stake in UK-based Avocet Sports to mark entry into high-end bicycle market in Europe for an undisclosed sum.

PARTICK THISTLE have thanked their season ticket holders after just 3.5 per cent of supporters applied for refunds.

The transaction is expected to close in January 2020, with OL Groupe holding an 89.5% stake, Bill and Teresa Predmore retaining a 7.5% stake and former NBA star Tony Parker a 3% stake.

After months of uncertainty for canegrowers, German-owned Nordzucker acquires a 70 per cent stake in Mackay Sugar.

Resources magnate Clive Palmer settles the majority of the $200 million lawsuit over the collapse of Queensland Nickel, including striking a deal with government-funded liquidators chasing millions in unpaid entitlements for refinery workers.

Most students in Colorado’s two largest school districts are participating in remote learning, according to data from the districts. But statewide, it’s harder to tell how many Colorado children are learning from home while school buildings are closed due to the coronavirus.

An IBM (NYSE: IBM) study of 26,000 consumers from 14 countries -- including almost 2,000 Australians.-- found that over 60% of Australian consumers identify themselves as “apathetic” in their choice of primary retailer – almost double those who see themselves as advocates of a particular retailer. As such Australian retailers have a significant opportunity to capture shopper loyalty, but they need to capitalise on existing investments in multi-channel and accelerate customer engagement across all channels, including mobile devices and social media platforms in order to win in this globally competitive sector.

The majority of Lakers players in L.A. were tested for the coronavirus Wednesday, a day after learning they were exposed to Nets players who tested positive.

RESEARCHERS have called for a two-track approach to easing lockdown which would strengthen protection for the most vulnerable but relax restrictions for the majority of the population.

It is a tiny spit of land that lies in the Firth of Clyde two miles off the coast of Troon where colonies of seabirds have made their homes for centuries.

Source: The Weather Channel - A majority of Americans say they believe climate change contributed to the severity of the hurricanes that devastated Florida, Texas and parts of the Caribbean over the past six weeks, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Public input sessions are beginning next week to create Delaware’s plan to mitigate, adapt and respond to climate change.

Dentons’ Real Estate team advised CPI Property Group (CPI), the largest commercial property owner in the Czech Republic, Berlin and the CEE region, on the acquisition of a 50.3% share in the ownership of Chałubińskiego 8 office building in Warsaw. The divestment was made by First Property Group, an investment company and the manager of real estate funds operating in Great Britain and Central Europe.

Charlton Athletic staff were paid last month but not with funds from majority shareholder Tahnoon Nimer, who is still yet to inject any money into the beleaguered Championship club.