PBC News & Comment: Trump Preserves Catholic Majority on Supreme Court

With pick of Bush buddy Brett Kavanaugh, Trump unifies most Republicans, and will divide Democrats during the crucial midterm elections….--Trump ran the process like a beauty pageant, with selection process outsourced to Federalist Society
--as a recovering Catholic who attended a Jesuit school, PBC knows the system that produced Kavanaugh
--both sides will spend big, make lots of noise, energize the base, and he will be confirmed with Democratic votes
--deep dive in Kavanaugh’s opinions shows he is radical conservative,
--last week, federal judge in San Francisco lectured FBI agent who broke the law in surveillance of suspect using Stingray system
--NSA admits it broke the law in handling 534 million call records under USA Freedom Act
--at end of session, Supreme Court ruled that government must get a warrant to access those call records, in slight win for 4th Amendment; read the commentary by UC Berkeley law professor Catherine Crump here
--one of the original NSA whistleblowers, Russell Tice, offers fresh warnings about NSA domestic surveillance, says “Medusa must be destroyed”
--during the July 4th break, former House IT contractor Imran Awan took guilty plea, so we will never know what he actually did
--exposing the ill-conceived “zero tolerance” policy, TrumpCo misses deadline to reunite almost half of children separated from parents at border
--federal lawsuit to block addition of citizenship question to 2020 census gains traction
--11 “forever” prisoners at Guantanamo file fresh habeas corpus petition demanding release
--Trump pardons Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, whose jailing sparked the Malheur occupation in 2016
--at Black Agenda Report, Margaret Kimberley offers good analysis of the victory by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
--at Shadowproof, Kevin Gosztola backs up Glenn Greenwald’s criticism of lying Democrats on MSNBC
--proven perjurer James Clapper says “democracy can’t function for long on lies”
--at Montana rally, Trump was slingin’ the bullshit, bigtime
--Montana listener Natalie Riehl tips us that Democrats sued to get the Green Party off the ballot in Big Sky state
--Michigan voters will try to fix the broken election system with 2 ballot measures in November