In California, the GOP scores below "no party preference" in voter registration, but much of the state's elites -- business leaders, prosecutors, judges -- have remained Republican, even as the party has moved away from overt support of unlimited capitalism supported by quiet racism and misogyny to overt racism and misogyny as a smokescreen for quiet support of unlimited capitalism. Read the rest

The Supreme Court hearing on Pepper v Apple has not gone well for Apple; the Supremes are considering whether App Store customers are entitled to sue Apple over its monopoly control over the Ios App Store. Read the rest

HR1, the first bill that the new Democratic House of Representatives will vote on, is omnibus legislation that takes on some of the most pervasive scourges of representative democracy: vote suppression, oligarchic campaign financing and gerrymandering. Read the rest

Yesterday, the Internet Archive published the 1983 edition of Cupola, the yearbook of Georgetown Prep, the elite academy and hive of rape-culture where would-be Supreme Court Justice drank his way through four years of tutelage. Read the rest

The wonderful people of the Internet Archive have posted a scan of the 1983 edition of Cupola, the yearbook of Georgetown Prep, alma mater of a rageaholic blackout drunk widely favored by Republican Senators for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States Senate. Read the rest

A procedural ruling by the Supreme Court this week will mean that the Federal Election Commission will be required to regulate "dark money" ads, forcing disclosure of the source of the funds for the ad. Read the rest

When Anita Hill testified about the sexual abuse she'd suffered at Clarence Thomas's hands, Senate Republicans and the press pilloried her, calling her a liar and worse, and going on to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Read the rest

Senator Orrin Hatch has never found an accusation of sexual misconduct by a Republican he couldn't wave away. When asked about Professor Christine Blasey Ford's accusations of sexual assault by SCOTUS nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Hatch told Bloomberg News' Laura Litvan, "If that were true, I think it would be hard for senators not to consider who he is today. He has denied this and I feel bad that this happened to him."

In addition to that pile of bullshit, Hatch told NBC Capitol Hill reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell that after talking to Kavanaugh, he thinks Ford might be "mixed up."

If this sounds vaguely familiar, you might be recalling Hatch's comments on Anita Hill. In a 2010 interview with CNN, Hatch said,

"I can tell you Clarence Thomas was telling the truth. I believe that Anita Hill was an excellent witness. I think she actually believed and talked herself into believing what she said. There was a sexual harasser at that time, according to the sources I had, and he was her supervisor, he just wasn’t Clarence Thomas. I think she transposed that to where she believed it because she was outed by the feminist women at that time and she couldn’t change her mind after — she couldn’t change her tune. And that’s what happened.

Buckle up, everyone. It's going to be an even uglier week than usual.

Trump Defends Kavanaugh While Signaling Possible Delay in Vote [Laura Litvan and Toluse Olorunnipa/Bloomberg News][Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr][CC BY-SA 2.0] Read the rest

Ady Barkan's Be a Hero campaign is taking pledges of cash to go to the Democratic challenger for Maine Senator Susan Collins if she breaks her word and votes to confirm Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Read the rest

Ady Barkan's Be a Hero campaign has made an offer to vulnerable Republican Senator Susan Collins [Maine]: confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court and we'll give all of our fundraised dollars to your Democratic opponent in the 2020 election; block Kavanaugh and we'll give the money back to our donors. They're looking for $20.20 pledges (I gave). (Image: Joe Ravi, CC-BY-SA) Read the rest

For generations, American mainstream politicians have smeared socialist movements by equating them with Stalinism and other forms of authoritarianism, but today, "socialism" is a label more and more people are embracing. Read the rest

When Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy quit yesterday, it was a nightmare for liberals: now Trump was going to get to appoint a second judge, and he'll be replacing a judge who cast deciding votes for marriage equality and habeas corpus rights for Gitmo prisoners. Read the rest

The Supreme Court has ruled in the closely watched Carpenter v. United States case, which questioned the constitutionality of warrantless location surveillance, a widespread practice among US law enforcement and surveillance agencies. Read the rest

Supreme Court Justice Neal Gorsuch used his stolen Supreme Court seat to carry the day for corporations against workers in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, ruling that employers could force potential employees to sign away their legal right to participate in class action suits as a condition of employment. Read the rest

One of the cases that the Supreme Court heard this season was NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc. which rolls up several cases where employers are hoping to establish that they can force prospective employees to sign a mandatory arbitration waiver as a condition of employment; if they prevail, the majority of workplaces in America will likely adopt the practice. Read the rest

Back when the anti-Net-Neutrality was pretending to have anything like an argument (apart from, "NETWORK NEUTRALITY INTERFERES WITH MY ABILITY TO BECOME LIMITLESSLY RICH, GO FUCK YOURSELF), one of the stupid pieces of spaghetti they threw at the wall was, "The FCC shouldn't regulate telcos, that's the FTC's job." Read the rest

In 1968, the Supremes ruled in Terry v. Ohio that the police did not need "probable cause" to stop a person, it was sufficient that they have "reasonable suspicion." Read the rest