Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240617121514/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo

OP - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/

Archive part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7

Distressingly, the opinion leaves breadcrumbs for [anti-abortion] activists to follow next time—and sets up some roadblocks to keep progressive activists out. For example, Kavanaugh writes that plaintiffs who aren’t actually affected by a given regulation, like the AHM, can still “thread the causation needle” if they show that the parties who are regulated “will likely react in predictable ways that in turn will likely injure the plaintiffs.” The Court also clarified that an organization does not have standing merely if it “diverts its resources in response to a defendant’s actions.”

Why does this matter? The diversion-of-resources argument comes from a landmark 1982 case called Havens Realty Corporation v. Coleman, in which a fair housing organization sought to sue an apartment complex for its refusal to rent apartments to Black “testers”—people who posed as potential renters to test compliance with the law. The Court ruled in Havens Realty that the organization, although it wasn’t actually trying to rent apartments, nonetheless had standing to sue, in part because the realty company’s actions forced the organization to use its limited resources to ferret out illegal discrimination.

Kavanaugh’s opinion declines to extend standing to the AHM under Havens Realty. But he also goes out of his way to call Havens Realty an “unusual case” that the Court “has been careful not to extend…beyond its context.” If this language signals that the Court is looking skeptically at future diversion-of-resources claims, that could be bad news for civil rights groups trying to use the courts to enforce the law.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614122724/https://ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/abortion-pills-case-time-bomb-alliance-for-hippocratic-medicine/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614122241/https://theappeal.org/tough-on-crime-rates-record-low/

When the House passed legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in April, it included a new provision that Senator Ron Wyden described as “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.” Concern over the provision mounted in the Senate and threatened to derail the law’s renewal. Anxious to secure reauthorization before Section 702 expired, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Senator Mark Warner, promised to work with other senators to narrow the provision in subsequent legislation.

To his credit, Senator Warner has made good on that promise; but the cure that SSCI has chosen is nearly as bad as the disease. The committee has created a dangerous new form of “secret law,” in which the legal parameters for surveillance—rules that bind not only the government, but private parties—are themselves classified. There is a much better solution available: Congress can legislate both responsibly and openly, as long as the administration declassifies certain information that is already in the public domain.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614115258/https://www.justsecurity.org/96638/secret-law-overbroad-surveillance-authority/

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614115538/https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/06/10/new-jerseys-d-c-democrats-say-biden-administration-should-not-support-new-immigrant-jail/

Over the past year, four prisoners have died at Waupun, prison workers have been criminally charged, officials have resigned and a series of investigations have been launched at the local, state and federal levels.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614115212/https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/2024/06/12/what-happened-at-waupun-a-timeline-of-events-at-wisconsin-prison-evers-carr-hepp/74051315007/

[Sheriff] Dart’s spokesperson said the “primary driver” for the record spike in deaths was a sudden influx of paper laced with fentanyl and other drugs that was smuggled into the jail in the first half of last year.

Indeed, drug overdose was the cause of death for eight detainees in 2023, followed by six from natural causes (including Colon), three homicides, and one suicide, according to records from the Cook County medical examiner.

Deaths and overdoses at the jail plummeted after Dart severely restricted access to paper last April, going so far as to block defense attorneys from bringing paper into the jail. As of this week, there had been no deaths at the jail in 2024, his spokesperson said. The jail’s average daily population has also dropped significantly following the abolition of cash bail in Illinois.

But even in some overdose deaths, Injustice Watch found potential policy violations and lack of oversight that may have dangerously increased the jail’s reaction time to offer medical assistance, and advocates and experts say Injustice Watch’s findings point to longstanding problems at the jail that run deeper than drug-laced paper.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614115146/https://www.injusticewatch.org/project/jail-deaths/2024/cook-county-jail-deaths-2023/

“The asylum statute could not be clearer: that one must be able to seek protection regardless of where they enter the country, which is why the courts struck down Trump’s near-identical asylum ban and is undoubtedly why the Biden administration has acknowledged it may not be able to do this by unilateral executive fiat,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U. who has challenged several immigration policies under the Biden and Trump administrations.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614115111/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/us/politics/aclu-lawsuit-biden-border-asylum.html

Many city officials and police representatives bristled at the findings, with reactions ranging from disappointment and frustration to anxiety and near outrage. One city leader said federal oversight would "neuter" the department, while a police leader said the report's findings were riddled with "innuendo" and "half-truths."

The city's top leaders, City Manager Jeff Barton and Mayor Kate Gallego, were more cautious, stressing they wanted to read the report fully before substantively weighing in.

Few activist organizations weighed in. There were no protests or demonstrations at City Hall, as has occurred in years past. Poder in Action said in a statement on social media the community was "disgusted, furious and heartbroken" but not surprised.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614115022/https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2024/06/13/phoenix-police-slammed-in-126-page-justice-department-report/74080698007/

In a 9-0 decision, the court overturned a ruling by a federal judge in Tennessee who sided with the NLRB and ordered Starbucks to rehire the so-called “Memphis Seven.”

In doing so, the justices set a higher legal standard to prevent judges from deferring to the labor board in pending disputes.

...

AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler denounced the decision and said the court had “sided with corporate power over Starbucks baristas today in a direct attack on the fundamental freedom to organize a union on the job. This decision sets a higher threshold for courts to reinstate workers who have been unfairly fired. In a system that is already stacked against workers, this will make it even harder for them to get back their jobs.”

...

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in part, saying she did not think judges were exercising too much power in these cases and should generally defer to the labor board.

“I am loath to bless this aggrandizement of judicial power where Congress has so plainly limited the discretion of the courts, and where it so clearly intends for the expert agency it has created to make the primary determinations about both merits and process,” she wrote.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240614014332/https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-13/supreme-court-starbucks-judges-union-organizers

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240613125226/https://www.npr.org/2024/06/11/nx-s1-5002273/nearly-120-million-people-were-displaced-around-the-world-in-2023-unhcr-report-says