U.S. Supreme Court rules that law enforcement can use illegally-obtained evidence against defendants in court, which you would think would violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable search and seizure. There is no way, after all, that law enforcement could possibly abuse this loophole! And certainly establishing the loophole doesn't give an incentive to law enforcement to "accidentally" violate the Fourth Amendment! (Also, as Justice Sotomayor points out in a withering dissent, illegally-obtained evidence seems to afflict minority communities in America more than it afflicts white ones.)
Koch brothers start an ad campaign advising us to stop trying to tax the rich and instead do a bunch of things that don't actually help anyone but the rich the rich -- like cut taxes and regulations to "free innovation" (the Koch brothers clearly are not William Wordsworth fans!) and give corporations an "incentive" to create jobs. And they have the cojones to demand that we "end the divide," as if they didn't cause the divide! Cutting a corporation's obligations to the rest of us is an "incentive" for them to create jobs just like giving schoolkids cookies before dinner is an "incentive" for them to eat nutritiously. The "antidote," according to writer Sam Pizzicati, is the ream of facts demonstrating how full of soup the Koch brothers are. But you know what an even better antidote would be? Repeatedly calling them the real welfare queens, since that's what they are. Where would the Koch brothers themselves be without corporate welfare, after all?
In a peripherally-related note, data about economic growth in California and Oregon since those states hiked taxes on the rich also demonstrates that states that hike taxes on the rich grow their economies better than states (like the perpetually addled Kansas, home to Sam Brownback's tax-cutting "experiment") that cut taxes on the rich. Add that to the economic recovery happening in Minnesota since Gov. Dayton shepherded a tax hike on the rich. But I wouldn't call this battle "won" just yet -- people who don't think very much about taxes are still susceptible to manipulation. It'd be nice if national Democrats would point out how much ending Tha Bush Mobb tax cuts on the top 1% raised federal revenues. They're too weak to do that, though.
ProPublica reports on how home construction corporations fight tooth and nail to prevent governments from mandating sprinkler systems in homes. It is really astounding how corporate special interests can throw a tantrum (quite literally!) and get their way. Also, of course, campaign donations, corrupt politicians, hostage-taking about "keeping housing prices low," bait-and-switch about "families making decisions about their safety" when it's the home-builders making that decision, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Best nugget of utter cluelessness: the home building hack who says "I don’t see the cost effectiveness being there for fire sprinklers." What's the cost of a human life again?
Finally, you may have heard that Donald Trump's FEC filings show that his campaign has astoundingly little cash-on-hand -- which leads one to wonder if Mr. Trump is really all that rich, since he's apparently not putting that much of his own money into his campaign. Hillary Clinton's campaign has fourteen times as much money on hand, and that's after a more bruising primary (yes, Donald Trump had more opponents, but all of them put together weren't as tough as one Bernie Sanders). Still, the same caveat applies: Mr. Trump can take to the Twittersphere any time he likes, and the "liberal" media will still drop whatever it's doing to cover it, so how much campaign spending does Donald Trump need to do?
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