I see the inherent risk in the decision but it is the candidate's money and they should be able to recover it once the campaign is over. Vendors that provide services to the campaign expect to be paid. Why shouldn't the campaigner?

As long as we allow private money to fund campaigns, the rich will have an advantage. The problem is equating money with speech and businesses with personhood.

Clarence Thomas Says Roe Draft Leak Has Eroded Trust of the Court

Given the extreme politicization of the process to approve a justice of the supreme court, I am surprised that there is any trust left in the court. It will take a fundamental change in the process of approving justices before Americans regain their trust in the court.

Supreme Court justices should be randomly chosen each term from long serving appellate court judges.

Outgoing judges would decide which cases to hear in the following term so that potential incoming judges could be disqualified from serving if there was even a hint of conflict of interest. If disqualified, another name could be randomly pulled from the hat and repeated as many times as necessary so as to seat 9 justices.

Texas Censorship Law Declares War on Social Media

IOW: We want the right to provide false and misleading information to our poorly educated, gullible voters. We can't let the truth be known because we would be exposed for the morally bankrupt, anti-democratic, liars and demagogues that we are.

- Gov Abbott and the Texas GOP

If the other senators were so pissed with Paul, why don't they change the rules that allow him to do what he is doing? Of course they won't because it would mean that they would lose the right to take a similar position on an issue that is important to them.

To the other senators: Change the rules or STFU!

Voting doesnt work either if dems wont use their power to do what they were elected to do.

Dems are compromised; by design. Their drive to be a "big tent" party means that they get people like Cuellar in the HOR and Manchin/Sinema in the Senate. It's as if dems don't believe in their core issues because they are willing to support incumbents that have positions that are the antithesis of what dems claim to be their core values. Manchin/Sinema "claim" to support dems core values but their lack of willingness to do what it takes to implement those values are evidence of their weak/non existent support. Yeah.. Sinema/Manchin "talk the talk" but won't "walk the walk".

The problem with our elections are dark money. I suspect that every elected politician benefits from it whether they are willing to admit it or not. How is it that over 50% of the people that serve in congress are millionaires? What percent were millionaires when they went in? Being a congressional rep/senator is a racket that is funded by the wealthy and dark money is the fuel that is ruining our government.

A precedent has been set.

From what I have read, congress had/has the authorization to subpoena sitting members. However, in the past, it was only done by the ethics committees.

Not only are these subpoenas the right thing to do, it is a great CYA move. When republicans take control, they will surely subpoena democrats. Their behavior now will dictate how democrats respond when/if they are subpoenaed.

Once the "complex web" has been exposed, it is important to reveal it to the world (especially Russians) so that they know the extent to which they are being robbed and by whom.

Russia is a criminal enterprise masquerading as a country; a nuclear armed one at that.

In another article it was stated that the Doomsday aircraft was used to spirit Russian top government officials out of harms way in the event of a nuclear holocaust. I guess we won't have to worry about Russia starting a nuclear war until they get the parts back.

The Russians might want to monitor eBay to see if their parts show up there.

While I don't agree with him, ending public schools for illegals is a far cry from ending all public schools.

The federal government should fund the education of all school age illegals. That is not a burden to be placed on the tax payers of Tx. Personally, I would like to see publicly funded K-12 + 4 years of post secondary education in public universities and community colleges.

Nineteen states ban the use of telemedicine for abortion.

What's the point to having a law that can't be enforced? Providers could locate their services in other countries which don't give a damn about state laws. Furthermore, abortion pills shipped in non-descript boxes to a woman via the USPS is, I believe, beyond the reach of state laws.

There are laws on the books to prevent the sale and distribution of illegal drugs. It still happens. All these laws do is drive this business underground.

I guess we learned nothing from alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs.

... but at some point, there will almost certainly be a Republican president and a Republican Congress.

With draconian policies such as a ban on abortion, the likely hood of republicans controlling the Congress and WH any time soon diminishes as women in their child bearing years (and the men who love them) come to realize what republicans and conservatives have taken from them.

There is a reason that republicans abandoned their platform for the 2020 election and why Moscow Mitch refuses to state what policies republicans would implement if given control of the senate. It's also the same reason that Rick Scott, senator from Florida, came under intense pressure for stating a tax policy that republicans should run on for the 2022 elections. That reason? Republican policies suck. Republican office holders don't want republican voters to know what they are voting for. IOW: Just keep republican voters in the dark and feed them bulls..t.

Now that republicans are trying to appeal to the "working class", they are going to have to deliver for that "working class". Appealing only to their xenophobia is not a long term strategy. They will have to deliver substantive remedies for the issues that affect them. Elected republicans instinctively know this which is why many try to take credit for Biden's infrastructure bill which they didn't vote for.

And here is a special shout out to men that expect to abandon their responsibilities to children that they have fathered. What do you think the legal system is going to do to you when women can no longer get abortions and all of the babies resulting from a no abortion policy need support?

Michigan Prosecutor Pledges Not to Enforce the State's Abortion Ban

I don't like the idea of prosecutors (or anyone in the CJS) selectively enforcing/prosecuting laws based on their personal belief of what is right or wrong. To often, selective enforcement/prosecution results in marginalized groups being targeted because they are the "low hanging fruit".

People elect legislators to determine what laws should/should not be on the books. Let the people vote legislators in or out based on the laws that they choose to enact or not enact. If more Non marginalized people are target, perhaps they will vote in legislators that will change the laws.Let the people decide.

That said, given limited resources, there is nothing wrong with prioritizing the enforcement and prosecution of some laws over others as long as that prioritization is in the best interests of the people.

That Alito made a special effort to state that his reasoning could only be used in the case of limiting abortion rights is a tell that he KNOWS his reasoning is flawed; that his reasoning represents his personal belief and not that of a jurist properly interpreting the constitution and the laws stemming from it.

Republicans suck. MAGA republicans suck even more.

These fines are meaningless unless they are collected. There should be a weekly collection mechanism. Often these fines are dropped when the person complies.

Garland's caution, then, could be a form of statesmanship rather than cowardice.

Garland wasn't hired to be either. His job is to prosecute law breakers. Period. Irrespective of the turmoil that might ensue, he should just do his job.

Why can't the hundreds of billions of dollars in reserves that Russia has in western banks be used for Ukrainian humanitarian and military aid?

This is one of the few things that Trump got right. People/Companies need to be held to the agreements they make. Otherwise, what's the point of a contract?

As with the war itself, Putin will overreach in his subversive actions in the US political system and expose many republicans for the traitors that they are. Putin will force the republican politicians and conservative institutions to take positions and actions that can only be explained by their being on his payroll.

Come on Vlad; put the screws to them.

I hope that EVERY infrastructure project in those rural areas has a HUGE sign/billboard that attributes the work to Democrat Joe Biden!

For many (most?) rural voters, knowing the source of the funds won't matter because social issue are what motivates them most. In fact, if dems don't get the votes from rural areas consistent with their investments, they MUST give up on rural voters and focus exclusively on the suburbs and urban voters.

If rural voters want to benefit from democratic programs, they should vote for democrats. IOW: stop voting for republicans and hoping democrats win!

At this point, I'm amazed the entire party has not been dropped by the voting public for being the charlatans they are.

What I don't see is a coordinated attempt to discredit the ENTIRE republican party. Yes. Every election is local and individual candidates need to address the needs of the district in which they are running. But, there is a job for the DNC. It is the job of the DNC to take on the ENTIRE republican party. Condemn them for the traitorous, Putin loving, lying, anti democracy losers that they are. Where is Jaime Harrison? He is missing in action. He might be a good administrator but that is about all that he is good for. He has to radically increase his national presence and condemn the RNC tuit suite!

Being registered to vote in multiple states isn't a bit deal unless he actually voted in those states. For all I know, I may still be registered to vote in NC and I haven't lived there (or voted there) since I left in 1973.

Putin calls opponents "scum and traitors" as Moscow announces new crackdown on "false information"

Putin and his henchmen are on a rampage to eliminate the "scum and traitors". This won't stop until the people of Russia revolt; not by peacefully marching in the street but by surreptitiously taking more vastly aggressive action.

The US and European countries need to declare Russia a terrorist state and let every country that continues to do business with them know that they risk any good relations they might have with the West.

Biden needs to declare a national emergency: Open every damn oil spigot we have in the US and flood the world market with US oil. Countries dependent of Russian oil need to have an alternate supplier. Let that supplier be the US and other countries that feel as we do.

Build out the nationwide EV charging station network ASAP and incentive car manufacturers to build more electric vehicles faster and consumers to buy more EVs.

Build more wind and solar farms. Pull out all of the stops. The less oil we use here the more that is available on the world market. Furthermore, any EV or renewable power generation technological advances we make here should be made available to our allies around the world at little or not cost so that they can also wean themselves from oil.

Environmentalists will be pissed of course, but such is the hand that Putin and other oil rich despots have dealt us. Production of oil, for the most part, is in the hands of people that hate the US. For many (most?) of them, oil is their only product. Deprive them of its use and reduce the strangle hold that they have on the world. Let them drown in their oil reserves.

That was never the point. The point was to threaten the economy of Mexican border states to force them to take a more active role in stopping illegal immigration - not in smuggled trucks, but everywhere. Abbott got deals in place with several as a result.

What are the specifics of the deals? From the article, 3 of the 4 Mexican governors said that they will continue to do what they have always been doing.

Abbott said the deals with Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Len and Tamaulipas were "historic," calling them an example of how border states can work together on immigration. But three of the four Mexican governors said they will simply continue security measures they put in place before Abbott ordered the state inspections.

When he announced the initiative last week, Abbott said the goal was to stop illegal drugs and migrants from being smuggled into the state. As of Friday, the Department of Public Safety had not reported any drugs seized or migrants apprehended as a result of the state inspections.

RNC Still Paying Trump's Personal Attorneys

Fine. All it is doing is delaying the inevitable. Furthermore, it starves other republican candidates for money.

Just remember: ETTD

It's interesting that our laws permit debts from lawsuits to be discharged under bankruptcy but student loans cannot be unless they "would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor's dependents."

Yeah...? But isn't that what bankruptcy all about? Not being able to pay a bill(s) because it would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor's dependents?

Suppose the debtor has no dependents. Are they then not eligible to have student loan debt discharged in a bankruptcy?