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

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 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.)

US supreme court ‘demolishes’ Voting Rights Act, gutting provision that prevented racial discrimination

The US supreme court has ruled that Louisiana will have to redraw its congressional map, in a landmark decision that effectively guts a major section of the Voting Rights Act.

In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the court rendered ineffective section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining powerful provision of the 1965 civil rights law that prevents racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 specifically has long been used to ensure minority voters are treated fairly in redistricting

“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, wrote for the majority opinion. “Compliance with section 2 thus could not justify the state’s use of race-based redistricting here. The state’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

The court’s decision is a major upheaval in US civil rights law and gives lawmakers permission to draw districting plans that weaken the influence of Black and other minority voters. Some states may even rush ahead to try and redraw districts ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote the court had now accomplished a “demolition of the Voting Rights Act”.

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.

Pete Hegseth lost his cool in front of Congress. It was a dramatic unraveling

"Pete Hegseth is struggling: that much has been clear for a while. When it comes to the Iran war and the updates he is tasked to provide, he’s most comfortable in front of a journalistic audience, where he can yell and berate people for “being negative” any time they ask anything that sounds too much like an actual question. But today, poor old Pete had to testify in Congress before the experts on the House Armed Services Committee. It’s a place where questions aren’t just allowed, but also follow-up questions. And this is where he completely unraveled. Because follow-up questions really are Pete Hegseth’s kryptonite.

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Hegseth is a man who perennially channels the energy and integrity of a protein powder commercial, but few Huel ads have played in the hallowed halls of Congress. At press briefings, the Secretary of Defense-or-War is able to simply retreat back to his pre-prepared remarks about LETHALITY and WAR FIGHTERS and the COURAGE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP. But today, pressed calmly and continually by a bipartisan group on strategy and military expenditure, it became extremely obvious how out-of-his-depth Hegseth is. We provoke “unrelenting fear in our adversaries,” the former TV talking head insisted. “We fight to win in every scenario!” Our “war fighters” are “forging a lethal arsenal of freedom!”

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This is Pete Hegseth in his true form: slippery, defensive, wound-up. A handful of soundbites stacked up inside an ill-fitting suit jacket and passed off as a Secretary of Super Lethal War. Here is a man who cannot answer basic questions about what his decisions mean to the average American taxpayer; a man who is quick to call his fellow Americans adversaries and reluctant to talk specifics; a man who performs shockingly badly under pressure and becomes volatile in high-pressured situations. Just who you want in charge of the Pentagon. And yes, it is a little satisfying to watch such a man unravel in the face of basic questioning. But it is, of course — when you zoom right out — deeply and unrelentingly scary."

Private prison contractor Geo Group bars Washington state health inspectors, court filing says | AP News

When I say I used to work for a shitty private prison company that was salivating at the idea of getting deeper into immigration detention back in 2016 when I left ....

Amazon discusses ‘Apprentice’ reboot—with Donald Trump Jr. as a potential host from WSJ (Gift Article)

This should probably be its own ~tv thread, but I honestly don't care.