Supreme Court Signs Up for Corruption Gift Registry
June 27: Official corruption … Social-media’s COVID “censorship” … Cybertruck recall … Kinzinger endorsement …
If The Fucking News helps you face the fucking news, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to keep our original reporting and mordant aggregation sustainable.
The Supreme Court yesterday said it’s okay for companies to give public officials “gratuities” after those officials award the companies seven-figure contracts.
Because, honestly, what even is “unethical”?
The 6-3 ruling fell along party lines, but split the court’s bipartisan gift-accepting judges.
The judges who okayed official corruption were appointed to the court by law-and-order Presidents Bush, Other Bush, and Trump. The judges who objected to legalizing corruption were the trio of women appointed by namby-pamby soft-on-crime Presidents Obama and Biden.
Yesterday’s ruling, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh — a credibly alleged sexual abuser — said that the law makes a legal distinction between bribes given for government action before the fact, and “gratuities” given after the fact.
The case concerned Portage, IN, Mayor James Snyder, who gave contracts worth $1.1 million contract to Great Lakes Peterbilt for five garbage trucks. The next year, Great Lakes Peterbilt wrote Snyder a $13,000 check.
Snyder claimed the check was for his work as a consultant. A jury of his peers heard that argument and proceeded to shoot milk out their 12 noses from laughing so hard. Snyder was sentenced to a year in prison.
In his appeal, which he lost, Snyder dropped his whole “I was a consultant” thing and just argued that federal law only prohibits pre-bribes, not post-”gratuities.”
The appeals court, too, disagreed. So Snyder had no choice but to take his newly candid case to justices world-famous for accepting bribes gratuities before and after rendering services for their bribers friends patrons.
Almost every justice, including Democrat-appointed ones, has accepted gifts. The most egregious bribe gratuity accepters are Justices Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas, both of whom approved bribes gratuities in yesterday’s ruling.
Prior to the ruling, Thomas had claimed that the gifts he got — including luxury flights and vacations worth millions of dollars — were just tokens from friends, the same as you get from your friends, amirite? The ruling frees Thomas and his billionaire bribers tippers from having to claim that the bribes gifts gratuities arose from some hilariously implausible friendship.
In Kavanugh’s opinion, he explained that the ruling was necessary to clarify for people the oh-so complicated previous system. To illustrate just how murky and byzantine American corruption law has been for 200+ years, Kavanaugh, a legal genius, listed examples of gift-giving that could hypothetically present complicated, nuanced legal dilemmas for everyday people…if we didn’t already have 200+ years of history and facts and people-living to prove otherwise.
Kavanaugh’s hypotheticals included asking what about, for stupid instance, a family that wanted to tip their mail carrier? Kavanaugh suggested that without his ruling, these tips could be prosecuted even though they actually in for-real land are not.
In fact, in for-real land, millions of families for decades and decades have successfully tipped their mail carriers without the involvement of legal counsel. What most of those families have not done is tip their mail carriers after said mail carrier bought $1.1 million in garbage trucks from said family.
On a serious note, having covered small communities, including one-party South Bend, IN, and having lived in New Jersey for a while now, I know that the issue of official corruption, co-option by local fat cats — and not just car-dealership owners — is a very very super-duper real one. With local accountability journalism vanishing, this ruling threatens to unleash a tidal wave of wealth extraction via corporate control of government. It is, as the old saying goes, bad.
Plus, the ruling could prove especially valuable to corrupt officials if Donald Trump is elected and enacts his proposal to eliminate taxes on gratuities!
And it clears the way for officials to register their desired bribes gratuities online, so that their bribers friends private contractors can sign up for specific items.
Corrupt judges, say, are now able to register desired bribes gratuities for rulings on specific crimes. A cutlery set for stabbing a dude. Matching set of unwanted babies for overturning Roe v. Wade. A glamping trip for glelection stealing.
Had the court addressed this unfair ban on bribes gratuities earlier, history would have been very worse different. Criminals might have escaped their penal fates simply by rewarding acquittals with bribes gratuitites after the fact. A National Enquirer subscription from Donald Trump. Cuisinart from Jeffrey Dahmer. You get the idea. And no doubt you twisted Newsfuckers can come up with your own, delightfully sick examples!
In fact, if this article made you laugh and/or cry, you, too, can join in the Supreme Court-endorsed fun, and bribe tip your humble newsfucking servant for newsfucking services rendered by smashing that donate button…
With Corruption Legalized, GOP Seeks Cuts to Law Enforcement
As Republican-appointed judges greenlit official corruption yesterday, House Republicans quickly responded with a plan to pass the corruption savings on to you, the consumer.
New legislation that passed a subcommittee yesterday includes cutting 20% from the Justice Department, and 11% from the offices of federal prosecutors around the country.
The cuts to investigators and prosecutors coincide with a massive invasion of criminals and a historic crime wave that is destroying America’s cities.
Republicans are also working, the New York Times reports, on bills that would lower the salaries of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to $1 per year, plus benefits. Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s pay would be reduced to $0 per year, plus benefits. All three would be placed on performance-improvement plans.
The cuts have no chance of becoming reality, meaning they will likely be approved by the full, Republican-controlled House.
Government Social-Media “Censorship” Not Censorship
The Supreme Court yesterday struck down a ruling that blocked government officials from trying to get anti-social social-media companies to block medical lies that can kill people.
When social media began taking down user lies about COVID vaccinations, and it was discovered that government agencies had said taking down user lies would be a really good idea, the right wing howled like unstuck pigs who had COVID. So, two states and five social-media users sued.
The plaintiffs argued that people in power asking social media to limit posts violated the First Amendment.
Why did the court decide not to bar government officials from talking to social-media companies? Because that would violate the First Amendment. (I’m kidding because that would be too logical.)
Yesterday’s 6-3 ruling said that the government didn’t do anything wrong, and the yahoos who sued hadn’t been harmed and so why the fuck were they suing unless it’s just that their fee-fees were hurt in which case don’t pursue cases all the way to the Supreme Court and maybe grow the fuck up.
Justices Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented because some men just want to watch the world burn on Twitter.
Alito wrote that the ruling was blatantly unconstitutional. But given his own ruling on corruption, he should feel a lot better about this one once Twitter gives all the justices free blue checks as a bribe gratuity. After the ruling.
Alito also wrote that just because government officials didn’t threaten the social-media companies doesn’t mean the court can’t pretend they did. “If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by,” Alito wrote. “That is not a message this Court should send.”
Alito is expected to send exactly that message when he rules on the case of Trump coercing state officials and fake electors to steal the United States presidency.
Tesla’s Cybertruck Re-Re-Re-Recalled
Wonkette flags a story your otherwise infallible TFN missed: Tesla is recalling its Cybertrucks. Aaagain.
Now that CEO Elon Musk has won his gigabillion bonus from stupid Tech Bro-worshiping shareholders, his car company is recalling its doorstop-shaped Cybertruck for the fourth time.
Tesla isn’t planning to fix major systemic issues such as Cybertruck’s resemblance to a doorstop. This recall is for trim pieces coming loose and windshield wipers you wouldn’t wipe your ass with.
Because the Cybertruck is loaded with features, the newly discovered problems offer a wide variety of threats; to drivers, passengers, and anyone unfortunate enough to be near a Cybertruck.
The wipers — which drivers need in order to see things because it’s not like self-driving cars exist ha ha — can just shut down while they’re supposed to operating, while you’re driving, while it’s raining, while you need to see things.
The trim pieces can also obstruct vision — of everyone. How? Well, Cybertrucks don’t fly — yet! — but sometimes their trim pieces do! Because they’re glued on poorly, some of those pieces can take flight in the wind, smacking other cars or humans and/or obstructing other drivers’ vision.
Cybertruck owners will be notified officially of the recalls on Aug. 18, if there are still any surviving owners by then. But Cybertruck recalls have come at a rate of about one every six weeks since their release on Nov. 30, meaning if they stay on pace, we’ll actually learn about another recall before the official notices for this one even go out. That’s how fast Cybertrucks are!
Campaign Watch
FLORIDA In a rare interview, Pres. Joe Biden’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, was asked in a Puck interview posted Monday whether Florida is a battleground state. Dillon responded, “No,” placating pundits who desperately need politicos to supplicate themselves by affirming pundit biases about bullshit subjective shit like “Please confirm my judgment that Florida is a battleground state because that’s so important to establish definitively right now.”
Regardless of whether Florida is or isn’t, will or won’t be, Dillon’s answer pooped on pretty much every Democratic campaign worker and volunteer in the state.
“[T]his was such an unnecessary, demoralizing gut punch,” consultant Kevin Cate responded.
Turns out, campaign chairs aren’t obliged to reveal their personal guesses about subjective bullshit at any given moment, regardless of whether Florida is or isn’t winnable. Why? Because the nature of human existence and reality is that we don’t get to know shit like that definitively.
Trump beat Biden by a little over three points in 2020 in Florida. In a year when Trump wasn’t a criminal convicted criminal. In a year when Florida didn’t have voter referenda on the ballot for both abortion rights and — holy God it’s atheist Christmas — legalizing weed.
And you know what could happen between now and Election Day? Things!
So you don’t demoralize your entire team when there’s still months in which Trump or Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) or Trump’s running mate could so something sufficiently stupid to pierce even MAGA epistemic closure. Hell, Trump could pick Alex Jones for vice president. (Please pick Alex Jones to run for vice president.)
Bottom line: One thing voters like is winning. Which means one thing Democrats should never do is Puck interviews.
KINZINGER Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) endorsed Pres. Joe Biden for more-president yesterday. Kinzinger’s credentials as a former military pilot sucker and loser could give him credibility with independent voters who think flying airplanes is good training for consensus-building and legislation-writing.
As the AP notes, the endorsement means that at tonight’s debate, Biden can respond to any of former Pres. Donald Trump’s hilarious zingers with a devastating Kinzinger.
“I never thought I’d be endorsing a Democrat for president,” Kinzinger said, referring to his narrow imagination. “I know that [Biden] will always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world: our democracy,” he added, neglecting to address all the undemocratic shit every president does.
And if one (1) Kinzinger isn’t enough to slake your thirst for bipartisan endorsements, Democratic Coalition co-founder Scott Dworkin has a richly rewarding list of former Trump people and other Republicans hinting at their opposition to Trump or outright begging Americans not to do that thing they did in 2016.
Yes, TFN Knows
The first presidential debate is tonight. TFN knows. Everyone wants to know what’s going to happen, but that’s not how empiricism or the space-time continuum work. Still, scratching that itch is easier than journalisming, so virtually every outlet out there is gonna be dressing up tea leaves as reporting, instead of digging up or into systemic shit like The Lever and Grist and ProPublica and so many others do every day.
And that includes TFN, which has a planned story coming today of potentially grave consequences for Ukraine and will get utterly ignored because corporate media will be getting quotes from Biden’s debate-prep guy’s cousin’s mail carrier, without mentioning that he sold the cousin $1.1 million in garbage trucks.
TCB
All the smart online people say TFN should’ve done a live chat with all you crazy newsfuckers for tonight’s debate. TFN, however, can’t imagine — Kinzinger-style! — that anyone would want to join in. Was TFN wrong? Should TFN be doing shit like this in the future?
Lemme know on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, Spoutible, and/or Threads. I tend to suspect one dose of TFN per day is more than enough for most of you, but I’m willing to be wrong!
Go get ‘em, kids. You got this.1
I don’t actually have anything to add or annotate. It just felt weird to do a whole edition of TFN without a single footnote. (Too meta?)
Thank you for making me laugh....when I read the news, for fuck's sake!
This was an awe-zinger filled newsletter. I am finally catching up after daughter's wedding. Just in time for the country to circle the drain...