The Week In Review - Joe Rogan, Supreme Court, Biden in Pittsburgh, Affirmative Action, Ukraine, Taiwan, and other things
The Update: January 23rd - January 29th, 2022
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Top News
This week’s top news has two stories—The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action that will be included in two future deep dives. The deep dives will be the first-ever videos that I will be doing a subject. The purpose is to dispel myths and get information out before it becomes more corrosive on the topic than it already is.
I strongly suggest you read my back newsletter issues on the Supreme Court and brief intro to Critical Race Theory (which will also get a deep dive as well!)
The Update 9/5 - …Trump is ending critical race theory + Jessica Krug blackface controversy - (9/5/2020)
New Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the end of American democracy as we know it - (10/28/2020)
The videos will be on all social media as well as my new creator hub at the new streaming service LoCo+ in February!
1. Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer is set to retire
Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer is retiring this year. This comes as the Dems have may applied pressure towards Breyer to retire, he was appointed by Clinton in 1994. Breyer, who is 84, is the eldest member of the court. The Dems are looking to avoid another RBG-to-Amy Coney Barrett scenario from happening.
From my 10/28/2020 newsletter:
Under McConnell’s leadership, the Republican-controlled senate has 1) reduced the number of Senators needed to confirm a Supreme Court justice from 60 to 51 (out of 100), and 2) confirmed hundreds of judges, many unqualified, to lifetime positions within the federal court system. This included a 2016 non-vote on centrist Obama nominee Merrick Garland, who was blocked by the McConnell-led, Republican Senate for over two hundred days after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia beginning in March of 2016. McConnell’s public statements citing the need for the 2016 election to take place first. Once President Trump was elected, this extra Supreme Court Justice pick was first used on staunch conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and then Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a very contested confirmation hearing in 2018.
Breyer’s announcement is contingent upon a new nominee being confirmed before the end of the session this summer. Breyer has been the target of rumors of retirement since the Amy Coney Barrett rushed confirmation in October of 2020, making the Republican hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell orchestrating a denying of Obama to have a new pick in 2016 even more apparent.
From my 10/28/2020 newsletter:
Swiftly after Ginsburg’s death, McConnell announced that the Senate will be taking hearings on the floor on nominations for the Supreme Court. That announcement came less than two weeks after President Trump already made an announcement of twenty names to fill a potential Supreme Court vacancy. The Trump administration had already previously named more than forty people to fill a potential vacancy on the Supreme Court by 2017. Two of those names would become eventual justices, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. With the passing of RBG and the swift action of McConnell in pushing through the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett in just 27 days, the Republicans have assured a conservative majority for decades within the nation’s highest court.
A likely scenario of the Republican’s national voter suppression laws and gerrymandered political districts being mostly likely upheld in court, the Dems, could see a nightmare scenario this time next year. Add in the real threat of increased culture wars leading to more campaign losses than what happened in Virginia in November. As a result, Biden irked mostly conservatives by his next announcement, that Supreme Court would have its first-ever Black woman.
2. Joe Biden will be selecting a Black woman to serve on the Supreme court
The announcement of the retirement of Judge Stephen Breyer has set off a firestorm of controversy. President Biden has announced that he will be nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court—something he said he would do on the campaign trail.
There are currently 8 women rumored to be the most likely to get a nomination. The two most likely—Ketanji Brown and Leondra Kruger are getting more attention. But the selection of J. Michelle Childs could be enough to even get some Republicans on board to the nomination, unlikely, but plausible. But due to the GOP instance on being anti-Dem on everything since Biden took office a year ago.
Even if a Black woman is confirmed, the court will still be 6R-appointed judges to 3 Democratic-appointed judges. And if the Republicans take both the House and Senate as some are anticipating this year, it's unlikely the court will even become close to balanced unless something dramatic happens. Or the Dems maintain the Senate making places like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia key this year.
3 The Supreme Court is likely going to end affirmative action
Today the Supreme Court decided it would hear two cases on affirmative action this year coming from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Both cases are likely to produce the end of affirmative action as we know it.
The biggest success in this new culture war has been the role of getting Asian Americans to be against affirmative action. The biggest reason has been the efforts of Edward Blum, an arch-conservative who has also been successful at dismantling voting rights across the country. As well as his organization Students for Fair Admissions, which has helped bring several anti-affirmative action lawsuits to the Supreme Court. Blum is an anti-civil rights activist, who has spent his career dismissing, diminishing, and destroying these efforts.
Many of Blum’s efforts are a holdover of the 1950s-60s moment conservatives, which also saw the shift of both the Democrat and Republican parties. This is paired with the 1970s rise of libertarianism. A movement that has been anti-civil rights since its inception. Libertarians and conservatives also began to move into law schools to start challenging these efforts gained to African Americans because of the civil rights movement including voting rights and affirmative action.
From my 9/5/2020 newsletter:
From The New York Times, 7/8/2018 article on conservative political groups:
Since the 1980s, a network of activists and organizations has worked assiduously to reach this point, determined to avoid the disappointment they felt after Republican appointees like Earl Warren, William J. Brennan Jr., David H. Souter, Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Kennedy proved more moderate or liberal once they joined the court.
One of the leading figures behind the effort was Ed Meese, who served as attorney general to President Ronald Reagan, two of whose appointees, Justices O’Connor and Kennedy, proved less conservative than supporters originally hoped…
…the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the Judicial Crisis Network, the Judicial Action Group and Mr. Levey’s Committee for Justice have for years sought to develop a new generation of younger legal conservatives who would go into government and fill out lower levels of the judiciary.
This has been a 50-year exercise in vengeance by those aggrieved from the civil rights era. The strategy of attacking the courts, especially the Supreme Court has worked tremendously, as Democrats have put up just four Supreme Court Justices on the US Supreme Court in the last 53 years, while the Republicans have confirmed ten.
Should the courts continue on this arch-conservative path, many of those 1960s and 1970s gains will be gone within 12 months, including a looming decision on Roe v. Wade.
4. President of Ukraine wants the US to stay cool with Russia
Well rumors of a lingering skirmish between the United States and Russia over the advancement of Russian troops into Ukraine, the president has come out and stated that he would like for the US to be calm during this time period. The Biden administration is considering potentially adding troops to the region to aid NATO in anticipation of a conflict with Russia.
5. A bridge in Pittsburgh collapsed shortly before a visit by President Biden, it had nothing to do with bike lanes
President Biden was scheduled to be in Pennsylvania to tour various infrastructure projects that are in need of repair. Shortly before his arrival, a bridge collapsed, injuring 10 people, no one had life-threatening injuries.
This comes as the Democrat’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that was passed back in November, which is now beginning to become dispersed to certain cities and states that applied for aid.
*Addressing a recent form of misinformation regarding the bridge collapse
A recent tweet with deliberate misinformation claiming the money to fix bridges went to ‘woke shit’ like bike lanes is a reflection of the recent state of the country. A pro-MAGA account posted a statement that has over 30,000+ engagements as of the time of this writing, has been routinely debunked but is still being shaped as a dual anti-Biden/BBB narrative and the standard ‘Democrats destroy cities’ trope. The conservatives online engaging with the content are deliberately amplifying this narrative, so it’s important to engage with the truth.
*Pittsburgh has 446 bridges, much of which is in dire need of repair. According to the Pennsylvinia Auditor General in 2019, $4.2 billion in funds for repairs to roads and bridges were diverted to the Pennsylvania State Police. The funds that should’ve went to repair bridges did not go to fixing bridges.
Pittsburgh does also NOT have the most bridges in the world, that record is Hamburg, Germany which has almost 2,500 bridges—5x the amount of Pittsburgh.
Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman
The news of the bridge collapse brought out current Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman (D) who was scheduled to be campaigning in another part of the state. Fetterman was the talk of Twitter for his lack of proper attire upon meeting President Biden.
Fetterman’s everyman appeal and blue-collar ruggedness have made him another anti-hero star of the northeastern left-leaning voters but not the Democratic Party. Fetterman has done two different TED Talks, been featured on CBS, and is becoming a slow-rising national figure. Fetterman was seen last January using size (he’s 6’9) to deter Republicans who refused to confirm fellow Democrat Jim Brewster’s win on the statehouse floor, putting him on the national media scene.
Fetterman’s candidness to call out former president Trump while in office and Republicans who have been attempting to invalidate the 2020 election and their current attempts to undo no-excuse voting is separating him from the typical pragmatism of the Obama-Biden era of the Dems. Fetterman has become a growing nation is running for US Senate against fellow Democrat state House Rep Malcolm Kenyatta, should Fetterman or Kenyatta win, they would potentially face off against former medical doctor turned television host Dr. Oz who’s running as a Republican in Pennsylvania.
6. More Celebrity anti-vaxxers are emerging and platforms are supporting them
This week even more celebrities have come out as anti-vaxxers. This comes as actor Dawson’s Creek actor James Van De Beek’s wife, Kimberly, and Ant-Man & The Wasp actress Evangeline Lilly. Lilly was seen at a recent anti-vax rally in Washington, D.C. which featured RFK Jr. as a speaker. Lilly posted to Instagram a tone-deaf co-opting ‘pro-choice’ slogans to peddle in anti-vax conspiracies.
This includes NBA point guard Kyrie Irving, rapper Nicki Minaj, Black Panther actress Letticia Wright, NFL quarterback Aaron Rogers, model Doutzen Kroes, Adam Corolla, and Kevin Sorbo. Even Rob Schneider, who back last summer tweeted a veiled threat of using his 2nd amendment right against the vaccine.
Joe Rogan’s Covid misinformation and Spotify has led to Neil Young leaving
Joe Rogan’s recent stint of several known anti-vaxxers has caused a headache internally and externally for Spotify, the home of The Joe Rogan Podcast. A recent episode featuring Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist, who has come out against mRNA technology and the covid-19 vaccine has caused an immediate uproar. Malone has since become a hero of both anti-vaxxers and the right-wing media ecosystem. Malone due to his work on Pepcid, the over-the-counter heartburn relief medicine, was initially asked to work on the creation of the covid-19 vaccine. It did not work.
It must be noted, Dr. Malone did not invent mRNA by himself, Malone alongside several others contributed to the development of mRNA vaccines. Also many of his claims against the vaccine’s effectiveness, long-term symptoms, connections to myocarditis, mass formation psychosis, and that the vaccines caused death were not correct. Malone himself is vaccinated, according to his own admission.
— For a full listing of many of Malone's false or misleading claims, click here.
Rogan on another recent episode doubled down on his anti-vax rhetoric despite being corrected in real-time by a medical professional. While another episode with Dr. Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist beloved for his hot takes, went even worse. This one included thoughts on transgender people, Black Americans, and covid-19.
Spotify is getting what it paid for in Joe Rogan
Rogan’s statements on covid-19 and his guest's statements do not violate Spotify’s terms of service. It also must be noted that Rogan signed a 3-year $100 million dollar deal with Spotify in 2020, then the largest ever for a podcast. That number has since been eclipsed by Pat McAfee who signed a 4-year, $120 million dollar deal with online gambling company FanDuel in December. It was the Pat McAfee show that also had Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers state his anti-vaccine stance. Several doctors have come together to issue a letter to Spotify to remove the lies associated with the Joe Rogan Podcast.
Rogan’s blatant attempts at continuing to provide anti-vax content and casual racism have led legendary singer Neil Young to leave the platform. This was quickly embraced online by rival streaming services Apple Music and Tidal. Joni Mitchell has also supported Young, by removing her music as well.
Substack has stated it will not censure anti-vaxxers, racists, or those who explicitly put out misinformation on the platform
Substack, the most popular email newsletter platform has explicitly stated this week that they will not be involved in censorship of contact. This comes at a crucial point as a growing number of far-right provocateurs, anti-vaxxers, or the new contrarians. All of this had led to a growth in the audience and income for the platform.
Substack is not a neutral platform. It has been one of the biggest proponents of a libertarian/tech-ish view of ‘free speech’, which has coalesced into a freedom to not enforce policy standards. But this is par for the course for the start-up/Silicon Valley ethos of the last 10-20 years.
*It must be noted this is with Substack, while I do not agree on the viewpoints of the company, its management, or any of the current alt-right/racist/covid-19 misinformation accounts. I have not found a suitable alternative. I am working on it currently, if and/when I do find one, I will be likely leaving this platform.
Twitter has announced that it will also stop policing misinformation on the 2020 election.
Despite this lie continuing, the platform has seceded to the alt-right and their astroturfing donors. Misinformation related to the 2020 election is now so prevalent that over half of all Republican voters believe the election was stolen. Twitter has conceded, that since March of 2021, they have not been active in taking down misinformation.
5. Country music fans are upset for Willie Nelson to perform at a fundraiser for Beto O’Rourke
Some country music fans are upset that Willie Nelson performed with Beto O’Rourke at a recent fundraiser, O’Rourke is the Democratic candidate for governor of the state of Texas this year and will be going against incumbent Governor Greg Abbott. O’Rourke is a pro-marijuana candidate in Texas.
6. Gary Chambers marijuana ad
While not exactly this week, Louisiana US Senate candidate Gary Chambers released an ad that gained national attention. The ad entitled ‘37 seconds’ features Chambers sitting in a field smoking marijuana. The ad is meant to draw attention to the costs of maintaining marijuana laws in addition to its impact on people of color.
Chambers first gained attention last year for a now-viral video featuring himself chastising a white local school board member who decided to partake in online shopping instead of hearing concerns over changing the name of Robert E Lee High School, to which she defended. Chambers has become a bigger star on Instagram and Twitter since that incident, with appearances on The Breakfast Club and now MSNBC.
7. The US is also considering action against China for its encroachment on Taiwan
The US is considering protective actions for the country of Taiwan. This comes as China is rumored to be moving out on an invasion of the small island nation. For the last few years, China has been stating that Taiwan is not an independent country but is an island a part of the nation. This comes as many Taiwanese see themselves as an independent nation and have negative views of China. While China has warned of military action should the US interfere. This puts the Biden administration in an immediate situation on par with the severity of Russia in Ukraine and North Korea.
Stay warm this weekend and avoid the roads if you can! - KJW