12 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 27

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Tags: politics.usa, usa, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

11 comments

  1. [2]
    patience_limited
    Link
    The EPA Tells States to Test the Water for Birth Control and Abortion Pills Every impulse I have to think things can't get more ridiculous gets tromped on by this insane reality.

    The EPA Tells States to Test the Water for Birth Control and Abortion Pills

    Every impulse I have to think things can't get more ridiculous gets tromped on by this insane reality.

    13 votes
    1. DefinitelyNotAFae
      Link Parent
      I've posted this before but I hate how it feels ever more relevant Rabbit Test - Uncanny Magazine It includes testing the wastewater to catch individuals (a parent in this case of the teenager)...

      I've posted this before but I hate how it feels ever more relevant

      Rabbit Test - Uncanny Magazine

      It includes testing the wastewater to catch individuals (a parent in this case of the teenager) causing an abortion and charging them with murder. (To be pled down to manslaughter for being distraught over her own past abortion attempt and the lack of a nuclear family)

      4 votes
  2. [2]
    kfwyre
    Link
    The Trump Administration aims to penalize disabled adults who live with their familles

    The Trump Administration aims to penalize disabled adults who live with their familles

    Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to penalize people like Burton simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails and a federal regulatory listing. The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether.

    The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year, multiple Social Security officials said. It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud. White House Budget Director Russell Vought and Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano abandoned a different proposed regulation involving disability payments last year after ProPublica and other news outlets reported on the harm that the plan would cause to hundreds of thousands of largely blue-collar workers in red states. (The disability programs are administered by the Social Security Administration but separate from the retirement program for which the agency is named. The Trump administration has promised not to cut Social Security retirement payments.)

    7 votes
    1. DefinitelyNotAFae
      Link Parent
      I said Home and Community Based Services were being come for. Technically my partner and I don't count here but other cuts will come. (｡•́︿•̀｡) If I can't keep him at home, I lose him. I know how...

      I said Home and Community Based Services were being come for.

      Technically my partner and I don't count here but other cuts will come. (⁠｡⁠•́⁠︿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠)

      If I can't keep him at home, I lose him. I know how this will go and it terrifies me.

      7 votes
  3. [7]
    kfwyre
    Link
    Justice Department to allow firing squads for executions in move to ramp up capital punishment

    Justice Department to allow firing squads for executions in move to ramp up capital punishment

    The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, officials said Friday.

    The Justice Department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital that were used to carry out 13 executions during the first Trump administration — more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about the potential for unnecessary pain and suffering.

    4 votes
    1. hobbes64
      Link Parent
      Relax everyone, it’s obvious they have to do this because democrats keep calling them fascists.

      Relax everyone, it’s obvious they have to do this because democrats keep calling them fascists.

      5 votes
    2. [3]
      stu2b50
      Link Parent
      Tbh if you’re going to have capital punishment, firing squad seems better than the methods that are currently legal.

      Tbh if you’re going to have capital punishment, firing squad seems better than the methods that are currently legal.

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        Lyrl
        Link Parent
        The circumstance of people who are pro-death penalty mostly supporting methods likely to be horrific deaths, and the people who would prefer humane deaths mostly having a first choice of no death...

        The circumstance of people who are pro-death penalty mostly supporting methods likely to be horrific deaths, and the people who would prefer humane deaths mostly having a first choice of no death penalty, is a weird dynamic. Humane death methods don't get much advocacy or support because the people who prefer that are spending all their energy advocating against the death penalty.

        1. nukeman
          Link Parent
          While I broadly oppose the death penalty, I think that for as long as it it around, it should be conducted as humanely as possible without medicalizing it. It should be done for what it is.

          While I broadly oppose the death penalty, I think that for as long as it it around, it should be conducted as humanely as possible without medicalizing it. It should be done for what it is.

    3. [2]
      Interesting
      Link Parent
      Biden commuted the death sentence of almost every prisoner on death row... Are any of the exceptions close enough to exhausting their appeals for this to matter?

      Biden commuted the death sentence of almost every prisoner on death row... Are any of the exceptions close enough to exhausting their appeals for this to matter?

      1 vote
      1. DefinitelyNotAFae
        Link Parent
        The three remaining are Dylann Roof, white supremacist and neo Nazi convicted for the massacre of nine people in a Black church intending to start a race war. Last update I see is him firing his...

        The three remaining are

        Dylann Roof, white supremacist and neo Nazi convicted for the massacre of nine people in a Black church intending to start a race war. Last update I see is him firing his attorneys because he doesn't want to be portrayed as having a mental illness. Genuinely I dont know where that leaves his appeal. Not in good shape. But not sure about timeline.

        Robert Bowers, white nationalist convicted for the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, killing 11, predicated on the idea that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid society was bringing in "invaders". He's been on death row for 2-3 years so probably not exhausted.

        Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of the Boston Marathon bombings, killing 3 people but injuring hundreds. His brother seemed to be the one radicalized by extreme Muslim "jihadist" beliefs, where Dzhokhar is considered to more match the profile of a "typical criminal". His last appeal was late 2025 and was denied, but it's related to a ruling sending the case back to trial court. Not enough of a legal background to know what that means tbh.

        Biden flagged these as being hate crimes and acts of mass murder/terror and thus not consistent with his moratorium, hence the sentences not being commuted. 2 of the three are also... people who some of the president's loudest (and most racist) supporters would want exonerated. If that wasn't just coincidence, it was well done.

        1 vote