DSR Daily April 30: Supreme Court Demolishes Voting Rights Act

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Hello and welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkuff. One of your hosts, the least of your hosts.

“The better host, a Riley Fessor and Minestine who are here to give us the news and we'll talk about it. I think Riley is going to kick us off today.”

Yes, and I've got bad news to start. Well, how unusual. Yeah.

And as 63 ruling regarding Louisiana as the Torah map, the Supreme Court's conservative majority significantly weakened the section two of the voting.

By requiring plaintiffs to prove intentional racial discrimination rather than just discriminatory effects.

“This is a trend for our good friend, Chief Justice John Roberts, of dismantling key protections of the voting rights act.”

And it is making it much harder for our minority groups to challenge maps that discriminate against them because how are you going to improve intent with something like that. It's a disaster. It is one of the worst decisions in moderate Supreme Court history. It is as you suggest continuation of a trend where they have been weakening the voting rights act. But even more disturbingly, it is the continuation of a trend where they are seeking to reverse the gains that Americans have made in the past century in terms of the rights of groups that have been excluded or discriminated against in our society.

And in that I include women because we took away the right of women to bodily autonomy. I include the voting rights act. Other things that have undermined the rights of people, including things like Citizens United, which says money is speech, which therefore gives the people with more money, more speech, more ability to influence outcomes. And thus also undermines the idea within our society of one person, one vote. They ended with the Trump case. The idea that no one is above the law and that there is a person at least and potentially a class of people who are favored by that person who do not have to adhere to the same laws as us.

It has really distinguished itself. And by this court, I mean the conservative majority on this quarter, the right wing majority or the corrupt majority of this court has really distinguished itself. As one of the worst, if not the worst in American history. And I don't think we have to judge. We don't have to say, well, dreads God is worse than this or this is worse than dreads God. They're all terrible. They're all contrary to the interest of the United States. All contrary to the intent of the Constitution. They're all contrary to progress. And we ought to be a palt. But a palt is not enough.

We have to fight back. And that means that any Democrat who shies away from saying, we need to restructure the Supreme Court is a problem is not solving the problem. We need to make it a priority that should the Democrats take control of both houses and the White House that we immediately move to an expanded court. I personally think this, you know, moving to 13 justices to correspond to the 13 different judicial circuits in the United States makes sense in this consistent with past legal tradition in the United States.

And then when he got advice on different ideas about reform, trash can though thing you didn't do anything about it. Biden, Merrick Garland, they were institutionalists, they believed the system would self correct.

The system is not self correcting quite the contrary. The system is locking in disproportionate power for the rich for white for white men.

And that is not a good thing. And by the way, it was going to come next is that it is going to become because this is a white Christian nationalist movement. It is going to be white Christian men because we are starting to see courts eliminate the separation of church and state.

“You have to have the 10 commandments displayed in schools or it's okay to teach religion in the schools and create this kind of disproportionate sense among students that certain religions are favored over other religions.”

So it is time. And by the way, I think the structure reforms that we need within our government are much broader than this.

We need to start addressing some of the structural reforms within the electoral college, which we should get rid of. And those are associated with things like how many states we have. We need to advocate and lead the way towards making the district of Columbia state, making Puerto Rico state, Puerto Rico wants to be a state, looking at the fact that some states barely have any population at all.

And by the way, don't think this is radical. This is the way America has always worked.

I think North Dakota and South Dakota is based on people trying to rig the system. And we have to undo some of that rigging because it is given disproportionate power to red states to rural states to rural Americans over the people who live in cities, which is where most of our population is concentrated these days. And it is time to update and adequate it, out of date, and dysfunctional constitution. Because if we don't, it is going to get rewritten by people like just to sizzle. And Thomas and Justice Roberts on this court.

And we are going to find more and more of our rights disappearing, more and more of the things that made America a great country, disappearing more and more of the aspirations of our next generation being crushed. But they live in a system that is no longer one that promotes equality and opportunity as we thought we were doing in recent decades.

“Well, I think we should have just not let any voting happen yesterday because nothing good came of it.”

For shadowing for my next story, the house voted to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for three years, notably without adding a warrant requirement for searches of Americans data. This legislation now has to the Senate where it is late stage inclusion of a ban on central bank digital currencies. It's let the leadership to declare it, quote, dead on arrival, complicating efforts to meet the final April 30th expiration deadline. I like to hear dead on arrival, but the rest of it I do not like to hear.

There's a lot of dispute about the necessary nature of this provision within the intelligence community, honorable people I know are on both sides of this thing, but it is a continuation of this broader trend. You know, of the rules being reset in ways that make many of us uncomfortable.

“And I think that the Republicans as they see potential defeat on the horizon will try to accelerate that trend and that should be worrisome to everybody.”

Well, David, I heard you complaining that oil just simply wasn't expensive enough. Yeah, it's true. Luckily for you, the administration has done something about it because oil prices have surged over $126 a barrel following new reports that the US military is preparing potential strikes against Iran to break the diplomatic deadlock and reopen the straight. That figure of $126 is the highest in four years, or since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine. So a great new milestone for our president.

We've talked about it. We talked about it on yesterday's episode of Deep State Radio. You haven't listened. Please go listen to the conversation that at least and and Rosenbrook's and I had on that. And recognize that we are in a new phase of this war or phase where there is no way out and where a president who is feeling impotent. You know, lashes out overreaction does things that further upset the global economy.

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“Well, the oil is not the only thing that is expensive. We talked yesterday about Pete Hexath who was going to be sitting before Congress.”

I said I thought it was going to go amazing.

Yeah. And sarcastically, it did go amazing to fence secretary Pete Hexath informed. Congress that the war with Iran has cost approximately $25 billion. Primarily spent on munitions used to strike over 13,000 targets. This is why the administration's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities have been, quote, obliterated, Hexath maintained that the conflict must continue until Iran formally abandoned its nuclear ambitions.

The U.S. Navy believes it can sustain its counter-blockade indefinitely using unmanned vessels to clear minds. The ongoing diplomatic stalemate continues to paralyze global oil traffic through the state of our moves, which was reflected in a Riley story.

Right. Yeah. Well, look, first of all, Hexath is smart me, smirking, incompetent, ignorant, pedaled lies yesterday,

was beat up by the Democrats for not pedaling the truth.

“And I think one of the biggest lies that he pedaled yesterday was that this is cost $25 billion.”

For sure, guarantee, take it to the bank. This is cost multiples of that and they're lying about it because they don't want to own the fact that they created something with massive costs. I would add that the costs are much more complicated than this little number that they've tossed out there. Not only do I think the number is two or three or four or five times. One of the things the number reflects is depletion of weapon systems that we've used that are going to take months or perhaps years to replace.

That puts us at a disadvantage in terms of defending our national security. Of course, as Riley has just said, the price of oil is going up. There is a cost to that, a cost to everybody feels a cost to the global economy. Today this morning we got the news that in the first quarter of this year, the US economy grew at only 2% that is below analyst estimates. There is a cost to that bad foreign policy combined with bad economic policy.

Let's not forget the illegal tariffs and the big beautiful bill and all that have put the US economy in the squeeze. And so, you know, there are a whole number of factors here and then of course the fact the war is going to go on and that's going to have other costs associated with it.

“And you know, who knows at the end of the war, what's going to happen?”

The Iranians make control of the straight-of-formers. They may demand a toll if they demand a toll that's going to add to the cost of goods and service a goods passing through the straight-of-formers. Some of these costs may be with us for a long, long time to come. It's a very, very grim situation caused by an adult incompetent unfit president making decisions he shouldn't make against the advice of even those around him and not having a solution to it. And then, you know, why is Pete Hanks that there if he's unfit, SMARM is smurking a line?

The only thing Trump cares about his loyalty.

He doesn't care about competence. And when you value loyalty over competence, you end up with the Iranmen. You end up with the tariff fiasco. You end up with an exploding deficit.

You end up with a collapsing economy.

You end up with what we've ended up with here.

“And it's unbelievably disturbing situation. And that's what passes for daily life here in the United States.”

Well, I've got a little cherry on top of our Iran stories because our wise president has threatened to reduce the US military presence in Germany. Dude, who's ongoing feud with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over, of course, the war with Iran and NATO's refusal to join in on the action. Merz is criticized to Washington's like a strategy and their economic damage that we have talked about today. And Trump has lashed out in response, questioning his leadership and Germany's commitment to stopping Iran's nuclear program.

Yeah, but don't, don't, don't you fall for this, folks.

“This is not Trump acting in response to something that Friedrich Merz has done.”

This is Trump advancing in agenda that he has wanted to advance for five years in the office. Now, almost ten years, it is his anti-native agenda, it is his pro Putin agenda. It is the Kremlin's agenda. It is not a coincidence that Trump mentioned this yesterday after he talked to who, to Vladimir Putin, who has dictated this, who is the winner, who benefits from all of this, who benefits from higher oil prices. Vladimir Putin, who benefits from the direction of US Iran negotiations and giving Iran more relative power in the region, which this war has inadvertently done.

Vladimir Putin, who benefits from the fact that we don't have the kind of weapons that lead promised to Ukraine to give to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, who benefits from Trump attacking NATO, Vladimir Putin, who benefits from pulling troops out of Europe, which are there to defend against Russia, Vladimir Putin, time and time and time again from 2015 on through now. The relationship between Trump and Putin has produced benefits for Putin and has produced penalties for the United States of America. I would add, by the way, one thing to the prior story.

You know, when Hades has said, you know, the problem is Iran has not been willing to force swear nuclear weapons.

“Let us just remember that Iran committed having no nuclear weapons in the JCPOA in 2015, and it has always been Iran's policy to force swear nuclear weapons going forward.”

Always, they were there. They were there the day before this war started, and we are clearly no closer to Iran being less of a threat as a result of Putin. And excuse me, as a result of Trump's actions, as we discussed on the deep say radio parties today, you know, since we pulled out of the JCPOA, Iran has produced 11,000 pounds of enriched uranium. But they have created this massive stockpile entirely since Trump, you know, laterally pulled out of that deal. So the Iranian nuclear problem comes from Trump.

And while he is doing that, he is also doing things that weaken US national interests elsewhere, notably in Europe, notably vis-a-vis Russia. So all pretty grim. I would note that a story is just crossed the wire, which is kind of interesting. That's an old expression crossing the wire, by the way, but I just saw it in social media, which is that governor Janet Mills has pulled out of the main Senate race, essentially leaving the Democratic domination to gray and platinum, ostensibly to help ensure that platinum can focus his efforts on beating Susan Collins in the November race, which seems like a possibility.

Platner is an imperfect candidate, but he was the candidate of next-gen dams and Mills was the candidate of Chuck Schumer and the party leadership.

As we go forward, especially after the November elections.

“Anyway, that's where we are here on a Thursday. We will keep following these things. We will keep producing content.”

For you, subscribe to the podcast by going to the DSR Network.com and clicking on Membership, help support what we are doing, and we will help you with what you are doing by trying to provide you with expert perspectives.

On the big stories of the day.

For now, thank you, Riley. Thank you, Mina. Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye.