but nothing is more expensive. you are simply hallucinating this

The maga types don’t value the commandments for anything they actually say, they’re simply a gesture of cultural “fuck you” to secular Americans who care about the Constitution.

The Bible isn’t really very maga-friendly unless you isolate and re-contextualize it.

Does starting a war against Iran for no reason count as killing or…?

Say, does lying about immigrants count as bearing false witness against your neighbor? Does cheating on your wife count as adultery even if you’re Donald Trump?

You can ask, with all sincerity, whether you’re using the commandments from Exodus or the ones from Deuteronomy, you can ask if they’re divided Catholic-style or Protestant-style, you can ask why that Trump as Jesus thing doesn’t count as a graven image.

Like, you can play dumb, kids! Ask what “coveting your neighbor’s wife” means. Ask about “honoring the Sabbath” and what does that mean exactly?

This is constitutionally appalling, and I hope some enterprising young students make them regret it

What the founding generation understood as an establishment of religion is a legal question to be decided by a court, not a “fact” question to be decided by experts, no matter how credentialed. To be sure, courts must make a determined effort to grasp the relevant history bearing on that legal question. Hilsenrath, 136 F.4th at 491 (“This kind of historical inquiry requires serious work.” (citation omitted)); McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 803 (2010) (Thomas, J., concurring) (noting “[h]istorical analysis can be difficult”). See generally Heller, 554 U.S. at 592–95, 600–03, 605–19. They do so by consulting articles, books, and historical sources and bringing their own independent judgment to bear on them—not by appointing an “expert,” whose “findings” are insulated by clear-error review on appeal.57 _________________

And then, in one last bizarre twist, the Court says that judges aren't allowed to ask experts in history about questions of history, because experts impact "independent judgment."

Brb going to scream.

But this principle has no application to government use of religious language or symbolism. See Lynch, 465 U.S. at 687 n.13 (declining to apply denominational preference cases to city crèche). Nor could it. Consider the cities of Corpus Christi, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Fe, San Jose, St. Augustine, and Sacramento, to name just a few. Do those names represent “denominational discrimination”? Or take our national motto. See 36 U.S.C. § 302 (“In God We Trust”). Does it show “favoritism” for monotheism over polytheism?

The Fifth Circuit says religious freedom doesn't apply to religious symbols posted by the government because place names exist.

I am not joking.

That is what they said.

Moreover, Plaintiffs have not identified a shred of founding-era evidence equating the government’s use of religious text, displays, or symbols with an establishment of religion. To the contrary, it appears that no one “ever claimed at the founding that the display of religious symbols was a form of religious establishment.” Chapman & McConnell,

See, the Ten Commandments in schools isn't coercive because that's not what the Founders considered coercive.

And then, we get to the most remarkable and batshit part of this whole opinion.

(Incorporation is the legal principle that the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, applies to the States as well as the Federal government. The Fifth Circuit pretends this is not a thing.)

But somehow, it then gets even worse.

The key phrase—“an establishment of religion”—was readily understandable to founding-era citizens. See District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 576–77 (2008) (relying on a phrase’s “[n]ormal meaning . . . known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation”). The reason is simple. At the time, establishments were “a familiar institution.” McConnell, Establishment, supra note 12, at 2107.13 Someone on the streets of 1789 Boston, reading that phrase, would have instantly thought of the Church of England, the colonial established churches, or the current state establishments—in other words, a polity’s official church or religion. Ibid.

Although the colonial establishments became more tolerant of dissenters as independence approached, their essence remained unchanged. The original state constitutions reflect as much. Far from rejecting establishments, many states preserved the core components of their establishments, such as public financial support for the official church, regulation of religious institutions, and religious qualifications for civic participation.36 Most explicit was South Carolina, whose 1778 Constitution declared that “the Christian Protestant religion” was “the established religion,” requiring religious societies to subscribe to enumerated articles of faith to receive legal recognition. S.C. Const. of 1778, art. XXXVIII, reprinted in Poore, State Constitutions, supra note 36, at 1626.

The Fifth Circuit flatly states that when the First Amendment says Congress may not create an "establishment of religion," it means the Church of England. They then argue the Founders intended states to have their own churches unaffected by the First Amendment (!!!).

I expect Schumer and Jeffries will draw exactly the wrong lesson from this. They'll say it mobilized Republicans and we should tone it down for November. Instead of simply saying, "It mobilized Republicans and we still outnumbered them and won."

The lesson here is that Democrats need to floor it.

The implicit media consensus is that urban voters should not be able to overrule rural voters, but that rural voters should be able to overrule urban voters, an assumption so axiomatic and unquestionable that nobody even understands they're making it.

Palantir's Manifesto Is as Subtle as a MAGA Hat Palantir's 22-point manifesto is nonsense, writes Dave Karpf. But it at least it is short enough to be clarifying, he says.

So much of Silicon Valley has reached the conclusion that there is money to be made from American authoritarianism, writes Dave Karpf. With its ‘manifesto,’ Palantir wants to remind you that it reached that conclusion first, he says.

2. Kash Patel himself cut off “all ties” between the FBI and SPLC less than a year ago. So he knows SPLC was feeding the FBI intel on extremist groups - that is, seeking to “dismantle” these groups, just as they told donors. Nothing in the indictment shows they misled donors.

x.com/FBIDirectorK...

Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering A Grand Jury in Montgomery, Alabama, today returned an indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspi...

1. The central claim in the indictment of SPLC is a lie.

The DOJ/FBI accuse SPLC of lying to donors about seeking to “dismantle” extremist groups while secretly funding them. But the funds were used to infiltrate & help law enforcement dismantle these groups. Kash Patel knows this is the truth…

most gerrymanders are republican legislators saying fuck the voters

these ones are the voters saying fuck republican legislators

Of course they are concentration camps. And @anatosaurus.bsky.social is right that once you accept the euphemism you are halfway to normalizing the thing.

‘We were terrified they were going to kill us’: fishers who survived US boat strike speak out An Ecuadorian fishing crew describe their ordeal as victims of Trump’s purported war on ‘narcoterrorists’

“The US has provided no evidence that any of the vessels were involved in drug trafficking, and legal experts and rights groups say the attacks amount to extrajudicial killings as they apparently target civilians who do not pose any immediate threat.”

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Lots of replies are talking about how the dean is trump, which is terrifying.

But also, this dude is a shitty educator perpetuating a right wing talking point about education that is simply not true.

This is advance warning to every state’s AG. These fringe “conservatives” (radicals) are coming for ballots in every state. The Stop The Steal movement was a pre-cursor to actually stealing elections. Read the whole piece then consider how we fortify polling locations. calmatters.org/investigatio...

i hate to be that person, but if you (the author of the piece) are so dumb that you think that someone asking for more sensitive language at an event is equivalent to the use of state power to curb speech maybe your stupidity is part of the problem with higher ed

it’s so funny that the drunk tv host in charge of the military is like “real warriors don’t need vaccines” when all the greatest generals in history would have done anything for a jab that kept their armies safe from disease

Is someone going to tell him that the flu killed more US troops in WWI than any battle did (and that war had chemical weapons so horrific that they were banned afterwards)?

"I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to 'kiss my ass.' ... That was the beginning of a long and very nice relationship."

This is forever Tim Cook's legacy -- lauded for kissing Trump's ass.

2028 dem primary is gonna be a bloodbath of deluded egos who have zero clue how to engage with a human voter

Like... I'm sorry, but to win future elections, you need a good chunk of the people who sat out in 2016 or 2024 to vote for you, and I just don't think that sneering at them and saying it's their fault that things are the way they are right now is going to win them over, even if you truly believe it