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Ketanji Brown Jackson, the AOC of Jurisprudence, Has Thoughts About Court Neutrality

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke at the American Law Institute and warned that the Supreme Court risks looking political after its handling of the Louisiana redistricting case under the Voting Rights Act.

KBJ argued the court must guard its public image, especially in election cases, because, as the AP reported, Americans expect judges to stand apart from partisan fights.

She spoke after writing a solo dissent from the court’s decision allowing Louisiana to move quickly to use new maps after the court’s conservative majority struck down a majority-Black district and weakened the Voting Rights Act.

“Public confidence is really all the judiciary has,” she said at a talk before the American Law Institute in Washington, D.C.

“Everyone believes the court system is outside the political sphere. I think that means it’s incumbent on us to do things, to act in ways, that shore up public confidence,” she said.

Polling has shown public trust in the Supreme Court at historic lows in recent years, and Chief Justice John Roberts has separately bemoaned a perception that the justices are “political actors,” calling it a misunderstanding.

That’s a fair-sounding statement; nobody wants the highest court in America to look like a cable news panel wearing matching robes.

Unfortunately, despite a fair-sounding message, the problem comes from the messenger. Jackson has become the court’s loudest progressive voice, and subtlety doesn’t appear to be her preferred instrument.

While the justice did not address the substance of the ruling in Louisiana v Callais, which put limits on protections for minority voters under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Jackson did express concern about the rare move to immediately certify the ruling over the objection of a group of black Louisiana voters who said they were considering a petition for rehearing of the case.

She suggested that the court’s move – with no explanation and over a dissent she joined written by Justice Elena Kagan – may have looked like the justices taking sides. The practical impact has been the elimination of at least one majority-black district that has been represented by Democrats.

“The parties who were asking us to expedite the judgment [state Republicans] were doing so because they were embroiled in a political dispute over whether or not to apply the court’s ruling in the context of an ongoing election. …The parties who came to us said, ‘Please alter your rules, so that we can essentially have an advantage in the context of this political dispute.’ What I thought is that that should not be something that we should do,” Jackson said, “because it would look as though we were doing something unusual…to advantage this political party…that was asking us for political reasons to do it.”

In the Louisiana case, she dissented alone after the court allowed the state to quickly move with new congressional maps.

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China Off-Balance-Sheet Debt Exceeds GDP of Most Nations

For decades, there have been claims that China had the fastest-growing economy, and that it would eventually overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy. However, the fastest-growing economies are always developing economies because mature economies do not have as much room to grow.

In other words, a country with a per-capita GDP of $80 per month, as China had in the year 2000, has far more room for rapid expansion than a country like the United States, where the figure now stands at around $7,000 per month.

There is also the concept of low-hanging fruit. When a country has no highways or rail infrastructure, building highways and railways causes GDP to skyrocket. But once all major cities are connected, building additional highways and rail lines has only a marginal impact on economic growth.

A case in point is China’s famous high-speed rail system. Once highways and conventional railways already existed in China, converting to high-speed rail represented a massive economic investment and a large accumulation of debt, while the resulting increase in GDP was relatively minimal. For one thing, high-speed rail cannot be used to carry freight.

While China is still building high-speed rail lines, linking small communities with other small communities, the world is moving toward a remote-work model, making the movement of people a smaller contributor to GDP. Moving freight, however, remains critically important. Despite having a population less than one-quarter the size of China’s, the United States operates approximately 220,000 kilometers of total rail, about 33 percent more than China’s 162,000 kilometers, the vast majority of which is dedicated to freight.

Along with this development boom in China came debt. Because of the centrally planned economy, the central government was able to order local governments to invest and develop by creating debt. That debt was financed largely through real-estate sales, as the Chinese government controls actual land ownership rather than simple lease arrangements, which is what individual “homeowners” in China actually possess.

In order to keep this debt from detracting from the appearance of investment and economic performance, large portions of the debt were kept off the balance sheet.

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Open Records Laws Reveal ALPRs’ Sprawling Surveillance. Now States Want to Block What the Public Sees.

Reporters, community advocates, EFF, and others have used public records laws to reveal and counteract abuse, misuse, and fraudulent narratives around how law enforcement agencies across the country use and share data collected by automated license plate readers (ALPRs). EFF is alarmed by recent laws in several states that have blocked public access to data collected by ALPRs, including, in some cases, information derived from ALPR data. We do not support pending bills in Arizona and Connecticut that would block the public oversight capabilities that ALPR information offers.

Every state has laws granting members of the public the right to obtain records from state and local governments. These are often called “freedom of information acts” (FOIAs) or “public records acts” (PRAs). They are a powerful check by the people on their government, and EFF frequently advocates for robust public access and uses the laws to scrutinize government surveillance. 

But lawmakers across the country, often in response to public scrutiny of police ALPRs, are introducing or enacting measures aimed at excluding broad swaths of ALPR information from disclosure under these public records laws. This could include whole categories of important information: general information about the extent of law enforcement use; details on ALPR sharing across policing agencies; data on the number of license plate scans conducted, where they happened, and how many “hits” for license plates of interest actually occur; analyses on how many false matches or other errors occur; and images taken of individuals’ own vehicles. 

No thanks. Public records and public scrutiny of ALPR programs have shown that people are harmed by these systems and that retained ALPR data violates people’s privacy. In this moment, lawmakers should not be completely cutting off access to public records that document the abuses perpetuated by ALPRs.

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An Open Letter to my doctor: I shall not be making an appointment to have a vaccination

Dear Doctor,

Every few days I receive an email, a text, a telephone call or a letter from you, or some other part of the National Health Service, inviting me to have a covid-19 vaccination and, possibly, one or more of the other fashionable vaccinations (such as the vaccine against shingles, the one for the flu and the one for the respiratory syncytial virus) which you seem to believe will be of benefit to me and will, indeed, enhance my health and reduce my chances of dying prematurely.

The letters and calls I receive usually point out that I will benefit from these vaccinations because I am a “vulnerable” person. I don’t know how you know this because I haven’t seen a doctor or a nurse for some years. No one has offered to give me a check-up, to take my blood pressure or, indeed, to check that I am still alive. All anyone wants to do is to inject me with toxic substances.

Since the vaccination you push hardest is the covid vaccination, I’d like to take a close look at this product and the scam which, in March 2020 I called the covid hoax, the biggest confidence trick in history.

Many lies have been told about covid and the covid vaccine but the basic facts are quite simple. The number of people who died of covid in 2020 is almost exactly the same as the number who died of flu in 2019. Flu, not surprisingly, disappeared almost completely in 2020. Statistically, it is clear that covid-19 was the 2020 flu – well-marketed to terrify and to excuse the introduction of lockdowns, masks and, most absurd of all, the rule that people had to keep six feet away from one another.

The PCR test, which was used to diagnose covid, wasn’t designed for that purpose and had only a 14% accuracy rate. An astonishing 86% of the people diagnosed as having covid didn’t have it at all. Despite this, anyone who had a positive covid test and died was listed as a covid death – even if they had been run over by a bus or hit on the head by a madman with an axe.

There were no excess deaths in 2020. It was only in 2021, after the covid-19 vaccine had been introduced, that people started dying in greater numbers. The official statistics show quite clearly that it was the covid-19 vaccine which was the killer – not the covid infection (or, as I prefer to call it, the remarketed annual flu.) The covid-19 vaccines have caused more fatal adverse events than any other vaccine, according to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (aka VAERS). If you haven’t seen the VAERS figures, I do hope you’ll find a minute or two to look at them.

Dr. Michael Nehls, the author of an excellent book entitled ‘The Indoctrinated Brain’, published in 2023, reports that in 2021 alone, there were more than 75 times as many reports of death from the mRNA injection programme as compared to the average for all vaccinations worldwide in the previous 30 years. The covid-19 vaccine was killing thousands right from the start but doctors, unaware or uncaring or both, were pocketing huge sums of money to inject anyone who would keep still long enough. The fees for injecting patients with this toxic substance were much higher than the usual vaccination fees – presumably to stop doctors asking too many questions.

It is worth noting, of course, that everything that happened in 2020 happened in just about every country in the world. Governments everywhere were in lockstep and were following the same absurd rules.

Quite early on, the authorities (including the NHS in the UK) admitted that the vaccine didn’t do what it was initially said to do. It did not, for example, stop people getting covid and it didn’t stop people spreading the infection if they got it. So, I wonder if you’ve asked yourself why you are still promoting a vaccine which even the NHS admits seems both worthless and dangerous.

There were some fairly airy fairy claims that it might help reduce the severity of an infection, but I’ve never seen any evidence for that. Have you? It seems to me as if that might simply be an excuse to keep giving the vaccine to as many people as possible.

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Mother of Trans Track Star Criticizes New Policy Allowing Girls to Share First Place Podium

The mother of a transgender high school athlete publicly trashed California’s policy allowing girls to share the first place podium if they came in second.

AB Hernandez came in first at three events during Saturday’s California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section championship final: long jump, high jump and triple jump. Despite that, girls who came in second were allowed to share the podium due to a new California policy, per Fox News.

Trans athlete AB Hernandez won first place in the high jump, long jump and triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section finals on Saturday. So too did the girl who would have finished first, based on a rule enacted last year that awarded any female athlete that finished behind a trans athlete a higher placement.

The CIF enacted a pilot program for the state finals last May that awarded any female athlete that finished behind a trans athlete one higher spot, which resulted in girls sharing podium spots with Hernandez for the championship. The program also ensured any female athlete who finished one spot out of qualifying for the state finals in events that included a trans competitor, to compete for the title as well.

Nereyda Hernandez, the mother of AB, decried the new policy on social media when she shared a post from Rainbow Families Action.

“All these big, tough ex-athletes at CIF, and the most courage they could muster was to hand this to coaches at AB’s meet today,” the group wrote. “Not one of them was brave enough to look her or her mother in the eye and say: ‘This whole project of violating Ed Code is aimed at you. A child.’”

Hernandez also wrote that her “heart was full watching A.B compete.”
“Today at the CIF Track & Field Finals my heart was full watching A.B compete,” she wrote after her son’s competition.

“No matter how differently she may be seen by some, she continues to walk onto that field with the most beautiful smile on her face, gives EVERY event her ALL, and carries herself with grace, determination, and sportsmanship,” she wrote.

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Rep. Chip Roy Files Bill to BAN Chinese Communists and Radical Islamists from Buying American Homes

Rep. Chip Roy has introduced new legislation to stop Chinese Communist Party members, radical Islamists, and other designated foreign adversaries from purchasing homes and real estate in the United States.

In an announcement on Tuesday, Roy declared that American property should belong to American citizens, not to geopolitical foes who seek to undermine the country from within.

The bill would explicitly prohibit individuals affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, Islamist groups, or other designated adversaries from acquiring residential property.

“American homes belong to American families — not the Chinese Communist Party, foreign Islamists, or our geopolitical foes,” Roy told the Daily Caller. “While Americans struggle to afford housing, hostile regimes are buying up our land and neighborhoods.”

“This bill slams the door on foreign adversaries owning American housing and forces them to sell what they already control,” Roy added. “We’re putting America’s homes back in American hands.”

Housing affordability is a top issue for American families struggling with high prices and limited inventory, while foreign entities, especially from China, continue to snap up homes and farmland in strategic locations.

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Ottawa says use VPNs but kindly leave a backdoor for us

Public Safety Canada recently posted advice encouraging Canadians to use VPNs online to better protect their privacy.

It was sensible advice when taken out of political context.

I use a VPN and you should too. But it ultimately didn’t play well with the general public and backfired.

That’s because Ottawa is simultaneously telling Canadians to shield themselves online while major VPN and other encryption-based platforms are threatening to pull out of the country, all because of Bill C-22.

This contradiction has become typical of Ottawa. One arm of the federal government reminds citizens to lock their doors, while another is drafting legislation designed to make it easier to kick those doors down. The attitude extends beyond tech and into the real world, where lax bail laws are emboldening criminals.

Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, introduces sweeping powers that would compel digital service providers to retain highly sensitive user data and location history for up to 365 days without any evidence of a crime. More alarming still, it aims to force companies to build technical “backdoors”, so state agencies can easily extract user data.

Signal, NordVPN and Canadian-headquartered Windscribe have already issued an ultimatum threatening to pull out of Canada entirely rather than play a role in spying on Canadians.

Tech companies understand something politicians refuse to acknowledge: there is no such thing as a secure backdoor.

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U.S. Removing 5,000 Troops From Europe

NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, assured allies Tuesday that the planned withdrawal of approximately 5,000 American troops from Europe will not weaken the alliance’s defense posture in the region.

Speaking to reporters after meetings with NATO military chiefs in Brussels, Gen. Grynkewich — who serves as both Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and head of U.S. European Command — described the move as part of a broader adjustment in U.S. force posture. The withdrawal involves an armored brigade, primarily from Germany, and aligns with efforts to shift more conventional defense responsibilities to European allies and Canada, reported Reuters.

“I’d like to emphasise this decision does not impact the executability of our regional plans,” Grynkewich said. He noted that as the “European pillar” of NATO strengthens, the U.S. can focus on providing critical capabilities that allies cannot yet fully deliver.

The drawdown, announced by the Trump administration earlier this month, comes amid ongoing reviews of U.S. commitments in Europe. Grynkewich indicated that further adjustments to the roughly 80,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Europe are expected over several years, timed to coincide with growing allied capabilities.

The comments aim to reassure NATO partners following concerns over the reduction, which follows heightened U.S. pressure for European nations to increase defense spending. Grynkewich stressed that the process will be gradual to maintain deterrence, particularly along the alliance’s eastern flank.

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Acting AG Todd Blanche SHUTS DOWN Crying Democrats – Says Even Hunter Biden Can Apply For $1.7B Anti-Weaponization Fund

The corrupt mainstream media and the unhinged Left are having an absolute, grade-A meltdown.

On Monday, the Trump administration dropped a massive truth bomb on Washington by establishing a landmark $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund.

Created as part of a settlement over the deep state’s illegal leaking of President Trump’s tax returns, the fund is a direct weapon against the horrific “lawfare” and weaponized justice that defined the Biden regime.

Immediately, Democrats like Representative Jamie Raskin ran to the cameras, hyperventilating and claiming this is a “taxpayer-funded slush fund” exclusively meant to line the pockets of President Trump’s allies and January 6th patriots.

“The View” co-host Ana Navarro appeared on CNN Monday night to air her grievances against the new fund, calling it a “slush fund” to pay off his supporters and “J6 insurrectionists.”

But during a Capitol Hill appearance, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche completely dismantled their entire narrative with one hilarious, jaw-dropping truth bomb.

Blanche flat-out STUNNED the leftists by pointing out that the fund has zero partisan requirements. In fact, he noted that even Hunter Biden could apply for the money if he wanted to!

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Japanese Are Feeling the Economy Collapse in Real-Time

Japan spent decades trying to convince the world that endless debt, money printing, and zero interest rates could continue indefinitely without consequences. Now ordinary Japanese citizens are beginning to feel the pressure directly as inflation rises, wages fail to keep pace, and living standards steadily deteriorate underneath the surface.

For the first time in generations, Japanese households are experiencing sustained cost-of-living stress while confidence in economic stability weakens sharply. Recent polling showed more than 80% of Japanese households now believe prices are rising faster than their incomes, while consumer confidence remains near recessionary levels despite years of government stimulus and intervention. Food inflation, utility costs, transportation expenses, and housing-related costs have all risen materially as the yen weakened dramatically against the dollar over recent years.

The psychological impact inside Japan is enormous because the country spent decades living through deflationary conditions where prices remained relatively stable. Japanese consumers became accustomed to stagnant prices and low borrowing costs. Once inflation finally arrived, the shock to household budgets was immediate.

Rice prices alone surged more than 20% year-over-year at one stage while basic food staples, imported goods, fuel, and electricity all moved sharply higher. Japan imports enormous quantities of energy and raw materials, which means yen weakness translates directly into higher consumer prices across much of the economy.

This is exactly what I warned would eventually happen once central banks lose control of sovereign debt cycles.

Japan now carries government debt exceeding 260% of GDP, the highest among major industrial economies. For years the Bank of Japan artificially suppressed interest rates and monetized government debt through massive bond purchases. The BOJ effectively became trapped because allowing rates to normalize aggressively would destabilize the government’s own financing structure.

Now Japan faces the consequences of that trap.

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