Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 10

Nebraska mom pleads guilty to giving abortion pills to her teen daughter

A Nebraska woman took a plea deal Friday in a case that involved her ordering abortion pills for her teenage daughter. Self-managed abortion isn’t explicitly illegal in the state—only Nevada and South Carolina ban it—but prosecutors can and do criminalize people for abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth by charging them under other statutes.

Jessica Burgess, 42, admitted to helping her daughter end her pregnancy in the spring of 2022—before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Madison County prosecutors claim that, in April 2022, Burgess gave abortion pills to her then-17-year-old daughter, Celeste, who gave birth to a stillborn fetus estimated to be at about 29 weeks’ gestation. The pair then burned and buried the remains with the help of another person; a 21-year-old man who only got probation.

Someone tipped off the police that Celeste had a stillbirth and buried the remains, and then cops obtained a warrant for Facebook messages between her and her mother. Facebook parent company Meta complied and provided the messages, in which the pair allegedly discussed ending Celeste’s pregnancy with pills.

Jessica Burgess initially plead not guilty to five charges, for which she faced eight years in prison. On Friday, she plead guilty to three charges (tampering with human skeletal remains, false reporting, and abortion after 20 weeks gestation) and the state dismissed the other two (concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician). She now faces up to two years in prison.

‘Whistleblower’ who accused Bidens of corruption is charged with arms trafficking and violating Iran sanctions.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-gal-luft-criminal-charges-iran-b2372862.html

Oh he's also acting as a foreign agent for China.

I'm trying to imagine the chain of events that would happen if the democrats associated in any way with this type of person. Hannity would devote the rest of his career to this story, and it's all you would hear about in any conservative media until about 2028.

Seattle police kept mock tombstone for Black man, Trump flag in break room, video shows

(archive)

The mother of a young Black man killed by Seattle police in 2017 is outraged and demanding an apology after learning officers kept a mock tombstone marking her son’s death on a shelf in a precinct break room.

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The department, in a statement, said that while it does “not know how that item ended up on storage shelving, we have no reason to believe it was placed as a ‘trophy’ or with any pejorative intent.”

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“Protesters often placed items such as these commemorating subjects of the use of force locally and nationwide around the precinct,” the department said. “It would not be unexpected that items left at the precinct might land on a storage shelf until disposition.”

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Baker said it appears the tombstone was taken from a Black Lives Matter memorial for people killed by police.

an excuse that makes "my dog ate my homework" look credible - they're claiming that the tombstone, after being made for a Black Lives Matter memorial (or perhaps left at the precinct itself by a protester, the wording isn't really clear) just accidentally happened to end up on a shelf in the cops' break room.

The room at the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct also was decorated with a large “Trump 2020” flag, in possible violation of state law and department policy regulating officers’ involvement in partisan politics while on duty.

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The department could not say when the tombstone or Trump flag were first displayed, but added the Trump flag was “removed long ago.”

the date of the body cam video showing the Trump flag is notable - January 2nd, 2021, 4 days before the Jan 6th riots. six Seattle PD officers went to DC on Jan 6th.

oh, and that video was only obtained as part of an ongoing lawsuit related to 4 people who were charged with "property destruction", a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to 364 days in jail, for writing in sidewalk chalk on a concrete wall outside the police station.

anyways, greetings from Seattle, supposedly one of the most progressive cities in the country.

Trump's Campaign Is Already Shaping Global Affairs
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-09/trump-s-possible-win-is-shaping-policies-of-china-russia-japan-eu

This is an opinion piece exploring what might happen if Trump were to be re-elected in the next US Presidential election. (It might be paywalled for some but I was unable to find an alternative link this time, sorry!)

A concern I have heard many times is that the world is more dangerous than a half-decade ago, amid a hot war in Ukraine, a cold war between America and China, a slow-motion nuclear crisis with Iran, and other problems. The margin for erratic or gratuitously abrasive behavior by a global superpower is smaller than when Trump first held office, which makes the expected implications of a return more pronounced.

The responses we have seen to those expectations aren’t uniformly damaging, from Washington’s perspective. If the possibility of a Trump return hastens Japan’s transition from a consumer to a provider of security in the Indo-Pacific, what’s not to like? In an odd way, the ideal equilibrium might be one in which Trump or someone like him never retakes the White House, but the chance of that happening still spurs greater activism among countries committed to the present international order.

But in the end, Trump’s shadow is largely shaping the world in less favorable ways. It encourages Putin to hang tough in a terrible war. It adds to Beijing’s hopes of splitting America from its European friends. It deprives the US government of leverage in dealing with friends and foes in the Middle East.

It would be unfair to blame Trump for all of these strategic problems. It’s not unfair to say that he contributes to them. Whether or not he wins the presidency again, the Age of Trump isn’t over. The challenge his return could pose for US policy is already here.

Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo

(archive link)

The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas’s aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas, who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor, and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.

Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amount of the payments is not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either “Christmas party”, “Thomas Christmas Party”, “CT Christmas Party” or “CT Xmas party”, in an apparent reference to the justice’s initials.

The lawyers who made the Venmo transactions were: Patrick Strawbridge, a partner at Consovoy McCarthy who recently successfully argued that affirmative action violated the US constitution; Kate Todd, who served as White House deputy counsel under Donald Trump at the time of the payment and is now a managing party of Ellis George Cipollone’s law office; Elbert Lin, the former solicitor general of West Virginia who played a key role in a supreme court case that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; and Brian Schmalzbach, a partner at McGuire Woods who has argued multiple cases before the supreme court.

Other lawyers who made payments include Manuel Valle, a graduate of Hillsdale College and the University of Chicago Law School who clerked for Thomas last year and is currently working as a managing associate at Sidley, and Liam Hardy, who was working at the Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel at the time the payment was made and now serves as an appeals court judge for the armed forces.

"it's a big club, and you ain't in it"

U.S. inflation falls to 3%, lowest level in more than 2 years, as price pressures ease (Archive link)

The inflation figure the government reported Wednesday was down sharply from a 4% annual rate in May, though still above the Fed’s 2% target rate. Over the past 12 months, gas prices have dropped, grocery costs have risen more slowly and used cars have become less expensive.

From my entirely uneducated point of view, this seems to be, on paper, a good thing? I know it's not really translating into the squeeze people are still feeling, often regarding rent and other necessities. But I know for a while a ton of economists were concerned that the high interest rates would cause a major economic recession, which doesn't seem to be happening...

Veterans quit as training, mission for DeSantis’ State Guard turn militaristic (Miami Herald)

When DeSantis announced in 2021 he wanted to revive the long-dormant State Guard, he vowed it would help Floridians during emergencies. But in the year since its launch, key personnel and a defined mission remain elusive. The state is looking for the program’s third leader in eight months. According to records reviewed by the Herald/Times and interviews with program volunteers, a number of recruits quit after the first training class last month because they feared it was becoming too militaristic.

More than 800,000 borrowers will receive federal student loan forgiveness (NPR)

The debt erasure applies to long-time borrowers who should have qualified for loan forgiveness under the rules of the government's income-driven repayment plans, but haven't received it.