FEBRUARY 22, 2024
Statement from President Joe Biden on Alabama Court Decision
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Today, in 2024 in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel hundreds of miles for health care, while doctors fear prosecution for providing an abortion. And now, a court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.

Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

I know that folks are worried about what they’re seeing happening to women all across America. I am too. I hear about it everywhere I go. My message is: The Vice President and I are fighting for your rights. We’re fighting for the freedom of women, for families, and for doctors who care for these women. And we won’t stop until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law for all women in every state.

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President Biden is showing off his seemingly surprising selfie skills.

The commander in chief proved proficient in taking selfies while appearing Wednesday at CJ’s Cafe in Los Angeles to highlight his administration’s student loan relief efforts. He’s in California for a three-day campaign fundraising swing.

Biden was eyed shaking hands and smiling for photos at the LA eatery before showing he’s adept at switching camera modes.

While posing for a selfie with a customer at CJ’s, Biden switched their phone to selfie mode, according to reporters traveling with him.

The customer expressed surprise that the president knew how to do that.

“After the last guy, the bar’s on the floor,” Biden quipped in a reference to former President Trump.

It’s not the first time the 81-year-old has charmed crowds with his selfie-taking.

During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.

Enlow is a pro-Trump “prophet” and leading proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a “quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy” that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.

Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”.....

Parker’s ties to extreme right-wing Christian and “prophetic” media figures extends beyond the interview with Enlow.

Last year, Christian nationalist media figure Sean Feucht said Parker had invited him into the court’s chambers for a worship session. Parker also joined a prayer call in March 2023 with supposed prophets and apostles, and he prayed that “there will be a growing hunger in the judges of Alabama, and around the nation for more of God. And that they will be receptive to his moves toward restoration of the judges, so that they can play their forecast role in revival in this nation.”

On Monday morning, three days after the world learned of Navalny’s death, Trump briefly mentioned the Russian leader, but only as a launching point for a harangue complaining about the United States. It appeared at the time as if the presumptive GOP nominee was trying to draw some kind of parallel between himself Navalny.

A day later, Trump was less ambiguous. The Associated Press reported:

Appearing on a Fox News Channel town hall pre-taped before a live audience in Greenville, South Carolina, Trump bemoaned Navalny’s death, which President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have blamed on Putin. Trump then pivoted to himself, repeating his assertions that the prosecutions against him are driven by politics despite no evidence that Biden or the White House ordered them.

After describing Navalny’s death as “a very sad situation,” and calling the Russian dissident “a very brave guy,” Trump added, “t’s a horrible thing, but it’s happening in our country, too.”

Referencing his many legal problems, including his recent civil penalty for business fraud in New York, the Republican went on to argue, “It is a form of Navalny.”
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1760102553293897761

.....For years, Trump’s public indifference toward Navalny was outrageous. The former president’s sudden interest in presenting himself as a Navalny-like figure is worse.

It was hardly the most high-profile case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, but Missouri Department of Corrections v. Jean Finney ended up serving as an unexpected vehicle for one justice’s political commentary. As my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained:

[The case involved] Jean Finney, a lesbian who sued her employer under state law barring sex discrimination. At trial, her lawyer asked prospective jurors whether they thought that homosexuals shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else. Potential jurors were dismissed when they cited a religious belief that homosexuality is a sin.

This seemed pretty straightforward. Finney’s lawyer understandably believed that those who had a problem with same-sex relationships would necessarily be skeptical of the plaintiff’s case. Lawyers for the Missouri Department of Corrections objected, saying this amounted to discrimination against those who appeared likely to discriminate.....

But while that effectively brought the matter to a close, Justice Samuel Alito took the opportunity to complain for a while. In a five-page statement, the unabashed conservative agreed with the legal outcome on procedural grounds, but Alito felt compelled to add some additional commentary of his own.

As far as the justice was concerned, it was problematic that jurors were excluded based on their “traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality.”

Alito added, “That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges, namely that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government.”

Obergefell, of course, was the landmark 2015 ruling that brought marriage equality to the United States. Alito was among the four dissenters in the case — and he’s apparently still worked up about it......

“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman” anymore, Alito whined, as if he were a social conservative candidate appealing for votes. “Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.”

In other words, the problem is not just that Alito whined about how unpopular anti-LGBTQ+ views are. The problem is also that Alito keeps whining how unpopular anti-LGBTQ+ views are

Last week, however, the party suffered what MSNBC’s Chris Hayes described as “the most spectacular embarrassment imaginable”: The Republicans’ star witness — the man at the heart of the GOP’s case — was arrested for lying to the FBI about the Bidens.

It seemed as if this couldn’t get much worse for House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan — right up until we saw prosecutors’ latest court filing. NBC News reported:

A former FBI informant who allegedly fed the bureau false information about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign said that some of the information he spread came from “officials associated with Russian intelligence,” prosecutors said in a filing Tuesday.

Let’s take a moment to pause and review what we now know.

During the 2020 presidential election, a longtime FBI informant named Alexander Smirnov made a variety of claims about then-candidate Joe Biden and members of his family. Those claims were difficult to take seriously, and they appeared to be completely wrong for a variety of reasons, but key congressional Republicans seized on them anyway....

The “scandal” isn’t what Joe Biden did, it’s apparently what his accusers did.

A judge will hear arguments on Thursday about whether a Texas school district can continue punishing a Black teen for refusing to change his hairstyle.

Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles from Houston, has been in in-school suspension or at an off-site disciplinary program for most of the school year. School officials said in August that George’s hair — which he wears in dreadlocks twisted neatly on top of his head, away from his face and neck — violates a district dress code regulating the length of boys’ hair. According to the student handbook, male students’ hair cannot extend past the eyebrows or ear lobes.

George has received letters and messages from people encouraging him and supporting his decision to not cut his hair, the family’s attorney, Allie Booker, said. The 18-year-old has said the support has made all the difference amid the headline-making controversy.....

This is not the first time the district has found itself in hot water over its hair policies. In 2020, two students filed lawsuits after they were suspended over the length of their dreadlocks. Both students withdrew from the school but the lawsuits are pending. One of them eventually returned after a judge granted a temporary injunction for him to return to campus.

A judge will hear arguments on Thursday about whether a Texas school district can continue punishing a Black teen for refusing to change his hairstyle.

Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles from Houston, has been in in-school suspension or at an off-site disciplinary program for most of the school year. School officials said in August that George’s hair — which he wears in dreadlocks twisted neatly on top of his head, away from his face and neck — violates a district dress code regulating the length of boys’ hair. According to the student handbook, male students’ hair cannot extend past the eyebrows or ear lobes.

George has received letters and messages from people encouraging him and supporting his decision to not cut his hair, the family’s attorney, Allie Booker, said. The 18-year-old has said the support has made all the difference amid the headline-making controversy.....

This is not the first time the district has found itself in hot water over its hair policies. In 2020, two students filed lawsuits after they were suspended over the length of their dreadlocks. Both students withdrew from the school but the lawsuits are pending. One of them eventually returned after a judge granted a temporary injunction for him to return to campus.

On Friday morning, the world learned of the death of Alexei Navalny, and President Joe Biden was quick to condemn the developments and blame Vladimir Putin for killing the Russian opposition leader. The Democrat added this week that the United States is considering “additional sanctions” on Russia as a result.....

But as part of the same comments, Pelosi also raised a related question:

“You wonder, what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him, his buddy in vileness? ... I don’t know what [Putin] has on [Trump], but I think it’s probably financial.”

Oddly enough, the Democratic congresswoman isn’t the only one who’s pondered the question.

Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who also served as a Republican senator before joining Trump’s team, had similar concerns. Bob Woodward wrote in his 2020 book, “Rage,” that Coats spent much of his tenure wondering what Putin had on Trump — a concern that intensified over time.

“How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation,” Woodward wrote.

In other words, Trump’s handpicked director of National Intelligence, during his tenure on the Republican president’s national security team, reportedly suspected that Trump had been compromised by Russia — and the longer Coats served alongside the GOP president, the more he feared his suspicions were true.