The White Supremacist Court Strikes Again!

If voting ever changed anything, they'd make it illegal... - Emma Goldman, it's funny how Anarchists always seem to empower Fascists...

Voting has always been a thorn in the side of the Republican Party effort to destroy the United States of America and replace it with a Neo-Conferderate Nation State built upon the twin pillars of White Power and Evangelical Zealotry.  
Enter the Supremacist Court and the elimination of the Voting Rights Act

John Roberts entire Raison d'être has been to eliminate the Voting Rights Act and to return America to the Jim Crow Era.

As a member of Gen X my first election I could vote in was 1992.  What I recall from the Republican efforts of the 1980s was voting was for squares.  Voting was for try hards.  Voting didn't matter.  Don't Vote it only Encourages the Bastards.  All the while elected Republicans have aggressively chosen to make voting harder at every opportunity.

Of course, while the general trend of whites voting Republican began in response to the now-defunct Voting Rights Act of 1965, after President Barack Obama's two election victories white people, overwhelmingly men but also women, went totally insane.  In response to President Obama's calm intelligence, reserved dignity, clear family values, white people demanded the chance to vote for the shittiest most despicable white man possible;  Donald J. trump stepped forward and declared I... AM... that Shittiest of White Men!

While Traitor trump indisputably galvanized and energized white bigotry and insanity he just came in at the most opportune moment to pluck the vile poisonous fruit of the toxic rightwing racist tree of white grievances which Republicans had cultivated for decades.

2020 was the first Presidential election since 1968 where over 60% of the eligible voters cast ballots.  We lost 5% off the 2020 percentage in 2024, as Republican controlled statehouses, and rightwing courts threw up every roadblock, removed access to ballots, early voting, and made it harder and harder to vote.  While Republican complicit corporate media allies took every opportunity to depress voter turnout and lie that Traitor trump and the treasonous Republicans were the better choice for grocery bills, gas prices, and work peace, while continually telling voters Democrats were lyin' about Project 2025, Trump's deportation schemes, and the madness of MAGA delusions once in power.

The Supreme Sinister Six

So now the White Supremacist Court has delivered the coup de grâce to the Voting Rights Act, Republican controlled states are taking extraordinary measures to ensure everyone of their federal districts is cracked and packed to ensure white voters get to pick Republican whites.  This isn't gerrymandering its' more akin the fracking the districts;

In Louisiana, Secretary of State Nancy Landry certified an emergency under state law, while Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order suspending the May 16 and June 27 U.S. House primaries. The Legislature is reviewing options for a new map.

Gov. Tate Reeves has called lawmakers back to Jackson for a special legislative session on May 20 to debate redrawing Mississippi’s three state Supreme Court districts. It’s unclear how lawmakers will redraw the districts, but several legislators predict they will be redrawn to make them whiter and dilute Black voting strength. 

When House members meet this month for a special session to redraw state Supreme Court districts, they will convene in the Old Capitol building, where Mississippi lawmakers once implemented Jim Crow and voted to secede from the Union over slavery.

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes the Supreme Court will let the state switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. It's a move that Republican legislative leaders said would "give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress." The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats.

In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state's one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.

Hilariously, every single elected black Republican Congressman will be out of office in the next Congress; although rightwingers will still have Senator Tim Scott to point to in their defense.  Tim Scott has taken to his new role as a shameless Republican by lying about the Price of Gas by invoking 1984 and claiming trump and Republicans continue to lower the price of gas.

It seems clear Republicans believe they have with AI-assisted voter data and mathematical models to ensure they will never suffer an election defeat in their fracked congressional districts, and Republicans throughout the federal and state level governments absolutely believe they will never suffer any reprisals for their evil actions.

Perhaps, they are correct.  These mid-term 2026 elections will provide a clue as the whether Republicans Project 2025 efforts to remake the United States into a Neo-Confederate state built upon the pillars of fascist repression and malicious prosectuion at home and capricious war crimes abroad will be successful. 

The Democratic Party in Illinois moves to protect Waterways & Wetlands

 Last year, the scummy SCOTUS ruled that the US Constitution and Clean Water Act aren't valid because the Supreme Six Injustices deem it to be so.

The fact the Clean Water Act was 50 years old or the that the first legal cases decided by the old SCOTUS dates back 200 years ago, or that the right of the Federal Government to regulate waterways is written into the very Constitution is irrelevant;   The Scummy Supreme Six Injustices are aligned with the rapacious Rich and those who despoil the Nation.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 survived decades of litigation from opponents seeking to limit the authority of federal agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to regulate the Waters of the United States, typically referred to as WOTUS. Before the wetlands decision, the Supreme Court upheld the definition of WOTUS to not only include navigable bodies of waters but also adjacent wetlands with meaningful hydrological connections. 

For over a decade, Michael and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple, challenged this definition before the Supreme Court twice. In 2004, they bought a lakeside property with the plans to build a home on the site. The couple began excavation without applying for the appropriate permitting to develop on top of a wetland and the EPA stopped the project. 

Last May, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sacketts.

You might have missed this ruling seeing as the Reactionary Court has been pushing through all manner of regressive bills designed to return the United States to its' Roots as a Slave Owning Kleptocracy built upon white supremacy and fundamentalist hyporcisy but, the Injustices financial backers and benefactors also have a eye on undermining any regulation which stymies their ability to despoil the land, strip it of it's natural beauty and reap the financial rewards.

All the meanwhile, leaving behind a shattered wasteland to be inherited by the meek.

Fortunately, here in Illinois we have a Democratic Legislature which will not simply turn the rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands over to rapacious billionaires to do with as they wish.

In response to another unjust overreach by this Court, Illinois State Senator Laura Ellman introduced a New Act 30 ILCS 105/5.1015, the Wetlands and Small Streams Protection Act:

to restore protections for wetlands and small streams that were formerly protected from pollution and destruction by the Clean Water Act. Provides provisions concerning: exemptions; wetlands delineation, classification, notification, permits and veto; general permits; appeal of final decisions made by the Department of Natural Resources and judicial review; investigation and enforcement; and county authority. Creates the Wetlands and Small Streams Advisory Committee and establishes duties and rules for the Committee. Creates the Wetlands and Small Streams Protection Fund. Provides for permit review fees. Defines terms. Makes conforming changes in the State Finance Act and the Illinois Environmental Protection Act. Effective immediately.

Marshes, bogs, ponds, streams, and other waterways are not things to be drained, damned, or reclaimed but integral pieces of a functioning landscape, a refugee for wildlife, and repository of natural beauty.

But, the 1% won't be satisfied with the massive gains they've made over the rest of America; the Rich want it all, which is why they know if they put Trump back into power they'll be able to finally eliminate the Middle Class, end the American dream, and shackle the American people into perpetual wage slavery and bondage. 

"I know plenty of you, and you're rich as hell...  And we're going to give you tax cuts."

You can't spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-P-P-I GOP without I-S-I-S K and F-A-V-R-E

A man's flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe - Dune, Frank Herbert

One of the things rightwingers have consistently done to aid their efforts is focus all their energy on one Democratic "scandal" and relentlessly catapult the propaganda.  Of course, the truth of the scandal is immaterial to conservatives what matters is the ceaseless repetition.

"And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping..." - Kevin McCarthy to Sean Hannity October 2015

Republicans are committing so many misdeeds, crimes, offenses, scandals, and treason that it's hard to keep track, document, and continue to focus on them.  This is one of the reasons Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans want to do away with the FBI.  Those damn Federal Officers are investigating and arresting Conservatives!  And to any Leftists, who've long called for the dissolution of the FBI, understand Major Traitor Greene isn't your ally in this because see doesn't want to eliminate the FBI she wants them replaced with a Trumpstapho or Trumpstazi, a cult of personality police force rigidly adhering to the Republican agenda of oppression and intolerance and one which will work to undermine Democrats the way the New York FBI did with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Back in April I did a post on Brett Favre stealing from millions from Mississippi taxpayers.  Well, since then more detail have emerged about the scope, intent, and direct actions Favre took to make sure he was able to illegally obtain Other Peoples Money.  Recent legal fillings have included additional texts sent by Favre as he was involved in a Republican scheme to "misuse" $94,000,000 of federal grant money earmarked for TANF and other projects to help the people of Mississippi.

One Hundred Million Dollars.  Stolen.  A Hundred Million!

But, of course Republicans don't care about this.  Governor Phil Bryant was, most likely, involved in all of this but left office in 2020 to his flabby underling, Tate Reeves who was Lieutenant Governor during this theft of A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS.  Reeves is still in office as Governor now as he seeks to make all abortion illegal, seeks to privatize the water supply for the poor people isn't facing daily calls to resign in disgrace.  Isn't facing Federal prosecution (as far as I know).  Tate Reeves is one of those bulbous, well-fed, smooth bodied rightwing Republicans who calls the meager assistance Americans receive from their government "cruel socialism" all the while ensuring those federal funds flow into the coffers of the rich and religious right wack-a-loons.  

And look in Jackson, Mississippi Americans don't have clean water.  For drinking.  For bathing.  For laundry and dishes.  For schools. For months.  Because Republicans don't invest in facilities for the people they rule over.  Because Republicans steal public funds and funnel it to their friends and ideological allies.  Because Republicans whole raison d'être is to get into office to undermine and hamstring government and then claim government doesn't work.  This is what they do with Education, Infrastructure, and any other public utilities.

The question for Americans and those living in Mississippi is; Are Republicans more dangerous to their health and well-being than ISIS?  The answer clearly is yes.

Republicans don't give a shit about people.  They don't give a shit.  Veterans, Law Enforcement, Women, and anyone who doesn't ceaselessly toe-the-line of Intolerance and Oppression and Adulation of the Rich.  Republicans idolize ISIS and want to create and Rightwing Fundamentalist Nation with 90% of people shackled in Wage Slavery, women and minorities reduced to second class citizens, and a Rightwing Paramilitary which rigidly enforces the White Evangelical Patriarchy with unimpeded violence.   

Guns Save Lives! Don't Drink the Water. Choose not to get sick. Republicans offer up their Obamacare Alternatives i.e. Die

Granny Straving P90X Ryan has a message for America, "I would not bet against Mitch McConnell". Nor would I.  McConnell's desire to cosign millions of Americans to an early grave is evident on his plump comfortable face.  Paul Ryan's earliest dreams were of denying the poor, sick, and old of healthcare rights.  Now, Paul Aynryan has seized the opportunity to make his dreams of shredding the social safety net to transfer that money to the rich into a nightmare for the poor and sick as Mitch McConnell tries to make Republicans Don't Care a reality.

Conservatives are so desperate to send millions of Americans whom they believe are underserving of basic rights to their deaths they will invent any number of ridiculous arguments;

"What if there are 15 million people who actually don't want to sign up for insurance but they were forced to, and have been counted because they were forced to under Obamacare? Is that part of the number that CBO gave us?" - Rich out-of-touch Plutocrat Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute. 

"How about letting other groups form -- not just employer based," Doctor Alieta Eck opined, "So if a group like the NRA or some other group..." - Guns Save Lives after all.

Since the Orangmanbabyus maladministration occupied America we have seen the strain of evil called conservatism inflicting its' degenerate lack of morals upon the American People.

Republicans hate America.  Conservatives hate the American Dream and want it crushed.  Conservatives are yearning for Trump to signal the go ahead to slaughter liberals, minorities, feminists, and every person in the United States who has the gall to act like an entitled White Person.

Remember, that briefest of moments when conservatives called for an end to the violent rhetoric?  Yeah, that was a ruse.  What conservatives want is for #blacklivesmatter and liberals to lay down and accept death at the hands of Republican bureaucrats and conservative murderers.  Here's right-wing domestic terrorist Dana Loesch calling for bloodshed in an NRA video (yes the same NRA Dr. Eck said would offer medical insurance)

The only difference between conservative "thought" and Republican policies is conservatives want to kill you right now whereas Republicans would like you to die after you've worked yourself to death's door.

But, if Americans have the temerity to live beyond their useful working years, Republicans have a plan for that contingency, gutting EPA regulations so Corporations can wantonly poison Americans.  After all you could always exercise some of the Paul Ryan "Freedom" and choose not to drink water.

US House Republicans love Pollution, vote to make dumping Coal Ash and mining waste into streams "Legal"

Faced with the massive toxic coal ash spills into waterways, US House Republicans decided to make the dumping of toxins into rivers, lake, streams legal. After all they won't be drinking, bathing or fishing in the toxic water. John Boehner called it a "pro-jobs growth bill". Because Fuck the EPA and all Regulations!

Congressional Republicans are evil. While an argument could be made the Republican Party contains some good people, any Republican you may have the misfortune to run into in Washington DC, is a villain worse than a mustache twirling caricature of evil. 

Throughout the Misadministration of George W(orst President Ever) Bush, Federal agencies ignorned the criminal polluting by Coal Mining Companies and in the December of 2008, Bush snuck through regulations giving them freedom to dump coal ash and other toxic waste products into nearby rivers, lakes and streams. Because Regulations are job-killers and the word Jobs is magic.

This last year has seen a number of Massive Toxic Coal Sludge Spills into Rivers rendering them not only undrinkable but untouchable.

Duke Energy followed dumping of 82,000 tons of coal ash and 27 Million gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River with another spill because Fuck the EPA and all Regulations! Duke Energy dumped 61 million gallons of coal ash wastewater into the Cape Fear River Basin from its coal plant in nearby Moncure, in Chatham County North Carolina. The vote by House Republicans would simply legalize these spills because Republicans are evil.

This vote is nothing more than a campaign promise Eric Cantor and Congressional Republicans has made to Corporations, 

"Whether it’s the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, the SEC, the CFTC, you name it, there is an acronym for a federal agency causing harm right now. We’re trying to pull that in." - Eric Cantor.

Republicans run this Nation for their Corporate Overlords. They don't care what happens to the Country so do you think they're going to care if your home's drinking water is contaminated? No, Republicans and their Moneyed Masters aren't going to be affected and they know their conservative base can be easily prodded into ignoring Republican Evil by yelling about President Obama's mom jeans or Benghazi!!1!11! who can be reliably counted upon to attack Liberals because condemning Pollution and the criminal negligence of Coal Companies is evil liberals/democrats punishing success.

The Pollution-Industry is making huge profits and Republicans are working to make sure any costs they incur while raping the Nation and Planet will be passed onto the taxpayer and Working Class. Because Republicans job in Government is to ensure Profits and Privatized while Losses are Socialized.

Additionally, 2013 saw the amount of oil spill surpass the last 40 years combined;

Altogether, 800,000 gallons spilled from US railroads in the years from 1975 to 2010. That data, which comes from the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, does not include records of Canadian spills, some of which are thought to surpass one million gallons spilled on their own. 

In part because of major derailments in Alabama and North Dakota, over 1.15 million gallons of crude oil seeped from train cars.

So, it should come as no surprise that BP at Whiting Indiana is back to polluting Lake Michigan again. Because Fuck the EPA and all Regulations. BP confirmed their plant, newly renovated to process Canadian Tar Sands, dumped a huge unknown amount of oil and tar sands sludge into Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan water is the primary source for drinking water for 12 million Americans in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

But, while all this is occurring duped and ignorant conservatives across the Nation are busy deriding President Obama for not doing something, something, something about Crimea instead of focusing on the Terrorists, Koch Industries, Duke Energy, BP, Murray Energy and so many others, in our midst. Just as their Republican Handlers and Plutocratic Masters intend.

Cholera Water for the Poor, $350-A-Bottle Pinot Noir for Republicans

The Republicans hate the EPA and are wholly owned by Corporations. As such, 223 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to eliminate the power of the EPA and the Clean Water Act of 1972, by passing H.R.2018 The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011. It would eliminate, wholesale, the EPA's power to supersede individual states' water pollution rules. Because as we all learned last year with BP, TransOcean and Haliburton and the Gulf of Mexico Spill companies can be relied upon to regulate themselves and if something does happen Rick Perry or some other Republican Stooge can blame it on god.

This is a Joe Barton before the fact apology to polluting Companies. Quite simply by doing this the Republicans are allowing Corporations more leverage by allowing them to face individual States as oppossed to Federal Power.

BP acknowledged that for the last six years its Whiting refinery violated federal pollution limits on benzene, a highly toxic chemical linked to leukemia and other health problems.

BP reported that it had processed too much benzene at the refinery's sewage treatment plant, about 15 miles southeast of Chicago.

Last year alone (2008), the company processed more than 95 tons of benzene waste -- about 16 times the amount allowed. BP also violated the 6-ton limit from 2003 to 2007.

Whiting Refinery was cited who violations of U.S. and Indiana EPA regulations in October 2008,

Federal regulators say BP PLC violated the Clean Air Act by beginning to make modifications at its Indiana oil refinery along Lake Michigan to process Canadian crude without the proper permit.

The EPA said in November the modifications caused "significant increases" in sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter and carbon monoxide emitted from the refinery.

Near Charleston West Virginia American families no longer have clean water to drink because the Bush Administration gleefully allowed Coal Companies to violate EPA standards and pollute the water table so badly that families are drinking a toxic sludge which is eating away at their bodies:

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.

In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times.

But, like all things Republicans if you have $$$ you can have Clean Water or even better if you have money and are poised to ensure all Government Spenidng is directed at protecting and transferring wealth to the Rich while undercutting and killing the Poor you can be Pinot Noir swilling Paul Ryan, Serious Budget Wizard!

This is Dastardly stuff the Republicans are pulling. If you aren't not a Hedge Fund Manager or a high ranking official for a Multi-National Oil Company or own your own Private Jet the Republicans do not give a shit about you. And Republican bureaucrats passing this type of legislation don't care about water pollution because they know they'll be rewarded by these same polluting companies with huge dollar amounts.

But conservatives don't care. Republicans and Conservatives love when Americans die, the sound of Americans suffering is music to the Republican ear.