10/08/24

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, October 8th.

International Newspaper Carrier Day

Let me tell you something – I get the newspaper on the weekend and my delivery person is not great. I mean, I feel bad saying that, but they never get it even near the porch. It’s always so far and then I gotta walk like, no joke, ten? Maybe twelve steps?

It’s exhausting.

And now, the news.

Hurricane Milton

-via AP News, ABC News, NBC News, and X

As the south continues to see the effects of Hurricane Helene, where at least 227 people have died, many are now bracing for Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a cat five in the Gulf of Mexico.

It is expected to make landfall on Florida at a cat three storm tomorrow evening.

Governor DeSantis, as well as many other officials, are urging Floridians to evacuate. Many are trying, which it’s leading to gas stations running out of fuel, as well as incredible traffic jams. To help alleviate some of these issues, the state is allowing driving in the left shoulder lane and temporarily lifted tolls.

The president has declared a state of emergency in the area, and of course he, as well as Veep Harris, have been briefed.

Listen, this storm is serious and going to cause significant damage in areas that are still reeling from the last storm’s serious and significant damage. So obviously now is not the time for politics. Which is why I’m happy to report—oh wait, no worry I was reading an article from ten years ago.

Governor DeSantis has not spoken with President Biden in the last few days and declined the offer to join the president on a trip to survey the damage of Helene. He has also declined a call from Veep Harris.

Why? Because he believes it’ll be political. Which is a sentence so dumb I can only just barely be motivated to talk about it, and yet I will… because this dude would drop a newborn puppy if he thought Donald Trump mightcall him.

Meanwhile on Sunday Speaker Johnson would not commit to calling the House back into session before the election, even though the President has asked him to, so they can vote on getting more money to hurricane victims through the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program.

So while all these absolute buffoons vote against the infostructure needed to keep their states safe and the money to make recovery from storms like this possible… remember that they are the ones playing politics. And the way you know it is because instead of trying to make sure the people in their state don’t lose everything, they are running to any mic possible to complain about the people that are actually helping.

And speaking of, them… last week Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

First of all – it’s unclear if the “they” she’s referring to are Jewish people or democrats. I actually believe she means both because, when it comes to Marj, we always have to assume at least an underlying layer of antisemitism.

Also – that is an insane thing to say! It’s weather!

Let’s laugh at these absolute weird dorks… and then let’s vote them out of office. Because while they’re playing politics and making antisemitic tweets – you deserve representatives that are going to actually work for you.

Just like every single House rep, Marj is on the ballot this year. Let’s get her out of there.

Supreme Court v Elon

-via CNN

The Supreme Court is back from vacation and ready to break our hearts and basic human rights, depending on how many private jets they’ve been on.

Let’s talk about what we’ve got out the gate. On Monday the high court declined to hear an appeal from Musk, which stated that Jack Smith has violated the 1st Amendment when he obtained a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter messages and then prevented Twitter from disclosing the warrant.

I was specifically the warrant disclosure Musk was upset about. Hey, you can do all the searching you want but I better be able to talk about it for the clicks!

The Court declined the case without dissent.

Georgia v Women

-via NY Times

And in state Supreme Court news… the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday reinstated Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, while an appeal in the lower courts plays out.

This comes just weeks after Propublica’s incredible piece that showed at least two women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, died specifically because of the state’s ban.

People have died. This is huge news, and you’d be out of your mind to believe that those justices in Georgia hadn’t heard about this when they still said… yes, this ban should go on.

It’s being appealed in the lower court because it was decided that the ban was in clear violation of the state’s Constitution, which is meant to protect the rights “a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her health care choices.”

And so, on September 30th, a Fulton County Superior Court overturned the law because of its deadly violation of the Constitution.

This upset Republicans who would hate for their right to control women to be taken away, so they moved to appeal it and Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, before most people even know they’re pregnant.

In that same vein, the Supreme Court let a Texas law stand that allows Texas hospitals not be required to perform emergency abortions, if they believe doing so will violate state law. Based on the fact that there were no dissents, it’s expected that the Court will also need to solve a similar law in Idaho, which protects the life, but not the health, of the mother.

Again, all of this was done with the clear and public knowledge of this undeniable fact – these laws are deadly.

So now here we are, where once again, a party that purports to be pro-life is passing laws that they know are deadly.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Hey, did any of these stories make you angry? Specifically at the Republicans?

We can win the House back. It’s very possible – there are 28 days until Election Day. Raisingvoters.org/beavoter

We deserve better. Let’s go get it.

And because we deserve better in a lot of ways, but there is no better than you… I’m proud of you.