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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