The anti-vaccination advocate known for spreading unfounded claims falsely told legislators that the drugs could leave people “magnetized.” “I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the Internet of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized ... “They can put a key on their forehead. It sticks.... “What an honor to have you here,” said Rep. Jennifer L. Gross (R), a nurse who co-sponsored the bill and in a previous meeting compared businesses that require vaccinations to the Holocaust ..

By Mark Sherman @ AP.com, June 7

WASHINGTON  — A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.

The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.

The outcome in a case involving a couple from El Salvador who have been in the U.S. since the 1990s turned on whether people who entered the country illegally and were given humanitarian protections were ever “admitted” into the United States under immigration law. Kagan wrote that they were not. “The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant...eligible” for a green card, she wrote. [....]

Highly recommended, no matter your personal opinion about them; I found this a real helpful article as far as understanding where they are at. Obviously included interviews with lots of the main players.

By Michael Powell @ NYTimes.com, June 7

An organization that has defended the First Amendment rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan is split by an internal debate over whether supporting progressive causes is more important.

By Geoffrey Skelley @ FiveThirtyEight.com, June 4

[....] According to a new Morning Consult poll [....]

[....] despite not agreeing with the Biden administration’s definition of bipartisanship, voters in the Morning Consult survey did think that among the major figures in Washington mentioned, Biden was the most interested in achieving bipartisanship: 53 percent agreed that he cared about getting bipartisan support for major legislation while only 34 percent disagreed. Democrats overwhelmingly agreed with this view, of course, but so did about 1 in 5 Republicans. By comparison, less than 40 percent of voters said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cared about achieving bipartisanship, and less than 30 percent said the same of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

But how much does bipartisanship actually matter to voters? Americans have long said they prefer that the parties work together, and respondents in Morning Consult’s poll were no different. For instance, 85 percent of voters said it was very or somewhat important for legislation to have bipartisan support, 69 percent agreed that policies with bipartisan backing were the best policies, and 62 percent disagreed with the idea that it was a waste of time for politicians to seek bipartisan support. What’s more, there were no meaningful differences between how Democrats and Republicans answered these questions.

However, polls also show that many Americans are willing to scrap bipartisanship if it means passing legislation that their party prefers. For instance, a 2019 poll from the Pew Research Center found that [....]

[Previous Crime News thread HERE, covering May 21 thru 31]

Distraught Father Tells Son’s Killers They ‘Will Burn!’

behind the kabuki of partisan voting on culture wars: