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Supreme Court Decision 1: A 6-3 Win Towards a Colorblind Constitution
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In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Alito, the Supreme Court did not overturn the Voting Rights Act, but clearly put significant limits on its application. Wall Street Journal: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply restricted states from using race to draw voting districts that help minority communities elect their preferred candidates. The 6-3 decision, which divided the court along ideological lines, further weakens the Voting Rights Act and could prompt some states to attempt to quickly redraw their congressional maps before this year’s midterm elections, potentially eliminating safe Democratic congressional seats and converting them into districts that lean Republican. “Allowing race to play any part in government decisionmaking represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion ( Wall Street Journal). The Roberts court has been consistent in a given direction. The Chief Justice stated the position clearly in the court’s 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District decision: The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race ( Justia).
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Supreme Court Decision 2: A Unanimous Ruling Grants Pro-Life Groups Right to Challenge Coercive New Jersey Law
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Finding: Pro-Life Pregnancy centers in New Jersey have standing to challenge laws forcing them to disclose donor information. Alliance Defending Freedom: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a collection of five faith-based pregnancy centers in New Jersey, may challenge in federal court an unconstitutional, coercive subpoena issued by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent the pregnancy centers after Platkin demanded that First Choice disclose the names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of many of its donors, in addition to up to 10 years of its internal confidential documents. In its ruling, the high court recognized that such a demand implicates the First Amendment by chilling the pregnancy centers’ speech and association rights. “In this resounding victory, the Supreme Court held to its long-standing precedent of recognizing that the Constitution protects First Choice and its donors from demands by a hostile state official to disclose donor identities and contact information,” said ADF Of Counsel Erin Hawley, who argued before the Supreme Court in December. “New Jersey’s attorney general targeted First Choice—a ministry that provides parenting classes, free ultrasounds, baby clothes, and more to its community—simply because of its pro-life views. That is blatantly unconstitutional. Should the Attorney General continue these efforts on remand, we look forward to presenting First Choice’s case in federal court” ( ADF). Full decision: ( Supreme Court).
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President Trump: The Blockade of Iran Will Continue; ‘They are choking like a stuffed pig’
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The President’s conviction is clear: He believes the blockade is serving the purposes of economically strangling the Iranian economy well. He spoke with Axios: President Trump told Axios he’s going to keep Iran under a naval blockade until the regime agrees to a deal that addresses U.S. concerns about its nuclear program. Trump is rejecting an Iranian proposal to first open the Strait of Hormuz and lift the blockade, while postponing nuclear talks to a later stage. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has prepared a plan for a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on Iran in hopes of breaking the negotiating deadlock, three sources with knowledge said. After the strikes, which would likely include infrastructure targets, the U.S. would press the regime to come back to the negotiating table and show more flexibility. Trump told Axios he saw the blockade as “somewhat more effective than the bombing,” and the sources said he had yet to order any kinetic action as of Tuesday night…. For now, Trump sees continuing the blockade as his primary source of leverage, but he would consider military action if it Iran still won’t cave, according to the sources. He declined to discuss any military plans in Wednesday’s phone interview, which lasted around 15 minutes. “The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told Axios ( Axios).
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‘The noose is tightening around the neck of Iran’s rump regime’
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That’s the assessment from Hugh Hewitt: Pay no attention to the Trump Distortion Effect that is bending much of war reporting into a critique of President Donald Trump. That’s wish-casting from lefties in legacy media. America is dominating this conflict. The United States will prevail…. So, how long can the rump of the regime hold their people down while trying to keep even minimum supplies of groceries and gasoline distributed across the country? The country’s internet is still quashed by the junta, and there is a semblance of a press office at Iran’s foreign ministry denouncing “American piracy” as the U.S. Navy methodically collects that portion of the “Ghost Fleet” or “Dark Fleet” of tankers carrying sanctioned Iranian oil. Three such tankers were intercepted far away from Iranian ports last week. No doubt more are on the map waiting for the right moment for the helicopters to hover and the Marines or SEALs to rappel down and take the controls…. Iran is a country rich in natural resources and an educated population. But its regime is a group of religious lunatics who may not understand the basics of a national economy. They can hide in their bunkers for only so long. Eventually, the bodyguards figure out that at least Mossad pays in hard currency and that is when it gets very, very dangerous for the fourth string “in charge” of the crumbling pyramid of power inside Iran ( Washington Examiner).
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NY Mayor Mamdani Has Just Begun—and He’s Already Facing a Budget Crisis of ‘historic magnitude’
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He’s spending like the socialist he is. He’s also pleading for more help from N.Y. Gov. Kathy Hochul to bridge a $5.4 billion city budget deficit. Hochul said, “no.” The City: Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday shot down a request by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin to change a tax credit to help fill a $5.4 billion city budget deficit. Mamdani and Menin had asked state lawmakers to authorize changes to the pass-through entity tax, or PTET, which allows some business people to keep state and local tax deductions that were limited by a 2017 federal tax law…. But Hochul said she sees the proposed PTET cut as a personal tax increase. “That’s why it’s not happening,” she said at an unrelated event outside Albany. “We’re not changing PTET” ( City). Ben Smith at RedState: New York City’s self-described democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has made history, just not the kind worth bragging about. Barely months into office, he has blown past a statutory budget deadline for the first time since 2015, declared a fiscal crisis of “historic magnitude,” and responded to a $5.4 billion budget gap the way any good socialist would: by asking someone else to pay for it…. Former Mayor Eric Adams left the city with $8 billion in reserves; Mamdani’s team has since claimed those numbers masked deeper structural issues tied to recurring expenses ( Red State).
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Biden Officials Masked Adverse Reactions to COVID Vaccines in Reporting
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Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is out with a damning report. The bottom line: There were over 25 statistically-significant safety signals that were deliberately “masked”—or concealed—by a manipulated algorithm. From Sen. Johnson’s report: Dr. Ana Szarfman, who at the time was a senior medical officer and safety data mining developer at the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), used an updated data analysis technique that identified dozens of statistically significant safety signals for adverse events associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. She immediately shared her findings with other FDA officials, including officials responsible for COVID-19 vaccine safety surveillance, but they largely ignored her and eventually told her to stop her data analyses. [Dr. Ana Szarfman and , Dr. William DuMouchel] —found “49 examples of extreme masking” with over twenty of those examples of adverse events now showing a statistically significant safety signal when adjusted for masking. In other words, by using a methodology that accounted for the masking limitation, Dr. Szarfman and Dr. DuMouchel uncovered approximately 25 statistically significant safety signals for adverse events associated with the COVID-19 vaccines that were not previously detected by FDA’s current methodology, including sudden cardiac death, Bell’s palsy, and pulmonary infarction ( Johnson).
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Pressure on DOJ to Indict Fauci
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This after the indictment of key aide of Fauci, David Morens, earlier this week. The pressure is on because the Statute of Limitations window is closing. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul: I’ve said it from the beginning: lying to Congress is a felony. Destroying federal records is a felony. Advising others to destroy federal records is a felony. Fauci did all three. His adviser was just indicted. Fauci is next. The deadline to prosecute Fauci is May 11. The DOJ must act now ( Paul). New York Post: “99% of this country has no idea who Morens is,” said Oversight Project President Mike Howell. “It’s Fauci that they will blame for one of the worst government catastrophes in history in America. And so the test is Fauci. The Morens indictment is great, and we applaud it. But there are a lot of people out there that want to see Fauci held to account for the damage he wrought.” Howell, whose group sent the Justice Department a draft indictment for Morens last year, believes the adviser’s actions were closely linked to his boss. “[Fauci] lied about one of the most damaging events in American history routinely and was behind a massive coverup of the key factors,” Howell said ( New York Post).
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Biden Administration Covertly Granted Planned Parenthood $90 Million in Forgivable COVID-era PPP Loans
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Loans that the nation’s largest abortion provider was not eligible for. Iowa Sen. Joni Earnst (R): I uncovered that the Biden administration had given Planned Parenthood affiliates through the Paycheck Protection Program over $90 million—forgave those loans, even though they were ineligible. And even worse than that, they tried to obscure the fact that they had done this illegally by using the code word “Benghazi.” What does Benghazi have to do with Planned Parenthood? Absolutely nothing. But instead of using the name Planned Parenthood, they substituted the code word Benghazi. That way, if anyone tried to FOIA or search for information on Planned Parenthood, it wouldn’t be found ( Earnst). Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America: “Just when we think the Democrats’ extremism can’t get more shocking, we see the lengths they’ll go to in protecting the Big Abortion industry. They knew letting Planned Parenthood help itself to taxpayer-funded Covid loans was illegal – so they tried to cover their tracks using, of all things, the national horror of Benghazi,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser ( SBA).
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House Clears Hurdle on Legislation Funding ICE and FISA
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It’s the FISA piece that’s most pressing for the Speaker. The Hill reports: House Republican leaders on Wednesday cleared a major hurdle when they corralled members into adopting a rule to tee up consideration of two major pieces of legislation: reauthorization of the nation’s foreign spy powers and a budget blueprint to fund immigration enforcement. The House voted 216-210 along party lines to adopt the rule. To do so, however, Republicans had to agree to drop a third piece of legislation initially also part of the same rule: the farm bill, which sets agriculture policy for the next five years. Adoption of the rule, even with the concession, is a major victory for GOP leaders who held open the vote for more than two hours as they won over holdouts and convinced rebels, one-by-one, to change their votes from “no” to “yes” …. Most pressing on Johnson’s agenda is renewing Section 702 of FISA, which would allow the government to spy on foreigners abroad without a warrant. The section is set to expire Thursday, and still needs to pass in the Senate ( Hill).
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At the Fed: Warsh Secures Committee Approval; Interest Rates Remain Unchanged; Powell Doesn’t Want to Leave
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First, on the president’s nominee to serve as the next chairman of the Fed, from Financial Times: Kevin Warsh’s nomination as the next chair of the Federal Reserve has been approved by the Senate banking committee, moving Donald Trump’s pick one step closer to leading the US central bank. The committee voted 13 to 11 on Wednesday to allow Warsh’s candidacy to proceed to the Senate floor for a full vote, which is expected to take place in the coming days ( Financial Times). Then, re: interest rates: An unusually divided Federal Reserve on Wednesday held its key interest rate steady as policymakers grappled with the policy impact of persistent inflation and awaited a looming leadership transition at the central bank…. Amid expectations for a routine vote to hold the benchmark funds rate steady, the FOMC instead was split along 8-4 lines, with officials expressing different reasons for their vote. The last time four FOMC members dissented was in October 1992 ( CNBC). And: Chairman Powell is reticent to say, “goodbye”: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that he would stay on the central bank’s board after his chairmanship ends next month to defend the institution from what he called unprecedented legal attacks from the Trump administration. His decision marks a departure from decades of precedent and overshadowed deepening divisions over the path for interest rates…. His term as chair ends May 15 but a separate term as governor allows Powell to remain at the Fed until early 2028. For decades, Fed chairs have left the building when their successor is installed ( Wall Street Journal).
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