SCOTUS may be the cushiest job in Washington...

Nine people who work nine months of the year. Associate justices are paid $268,000/yr and the Chief makes $280,000. They enjoy a lifetime appointment and a lifetime pension equal to their highest salary. Each associate justice is taxpayer-provided 3-4 clerks; Roberts can have five. Ballotpedia reports the court has agreed to hear 66 cases during its 2021-22 term.

Time to reconsider whether this branch of government is good value for the $$ and needs some oversight by the taxpayers' representatives.

Trump-backed FL U.S. House candidate calls Buffalo shooting a "set up" orchestrated by HHS

secretary Alejando Mayorkas. In a series of posts to TFG's Truth Social site, Laura Loomer said that "this" seems to happen during midterm elections when Dems are in the majority and added that "The devil works hard. But, Mayorkas works even harder." She pointed out that "Planned Parenthood has still targeted and killed more black people than the Buffalo shooting."

Loomer, who is opposing incumbent Lois Frankel, is a self-described "Proud Islamaphobe" and is backed by MTG and Gosar.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-supported-laura-loomer-suggests-u-s-government-set-up-horrific-buffalo-mass-shooting/

Ten dead in Buffalo. Where are Wayne LaPierre's "good guys" in all these tragedies?? nt

Is Steve Schmidt a scoundrel? Conservative Matt Lewis asserts that's possible in a column...

posted early this am in The Daily Beast. Lewis makes a case that Schmidt habitually bites the hands that feed him.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-schmidt-was-always-a-hack?ref=home

If TFG gets into office again, I believe his first legal battle will be to have his pet SCOTUS

ready to dismantle the libel laws. The 1964 case, NY Times v Sullivan established the precedent -- the standard of intentional malice that had to be proved. While POTUS he said he wanted the libel laws changed.

TFG has a real grudge against plenty of cases he lost: He sued the NYT and WaPo for publishing opinion pieces about his relationship with Putin; The Chicago Tribune for criticizing his taste in architecture; an author for writing that he wasn't a billionaire and a former Trump University student for asserting that the university wasn't an actual university.

He lives for revenge. And he'd have the court of last resort in his pocket.

D'Souza's propaganda film,"2,000 Mules" screened @ M-A-Lago last eve. Usual goose steppers

attended...Giuliani, Flynn, Lindell, MT Greene plus Kyle Rittenhouse. Film purports to validate voter fraud in swing states.

Note: Didn't hit paywall -- hope link works for everyone.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-2000-mules-film-election-fraud-dsouza-rittenhouse-1703680

The most powerful/wealthiest nation on the planet has relatively high infant mortality...

The 2021 CIA's World Factbook lists the USA as ranking 54th lowest -- 53 countries had fewer infant deaths. The number sounds low, 5.17 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, but still, given how we're always bragging about how we're the best at everything. Cuba, Belarus and Serbia had fewer infants die between birth and one year. Slovenia had the fewest deaths with 1.52 per 1,000. Maybe we need to improve care of the babies that are born. It's painful to lose a baby before it's born, but to have it die after loving it for a year is a horror.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison

And from yesterday's (Sunday) "Sh*t for brains" file...

Associated Press reports Mike Lindell was permanently banned from Twitter for trying to evade his first banishment by opening a new account: "at MikeJLindell."

Usually never come near The Washington Examiner, but this is amusing -- with TFG calling

George Conway mentally ill. I'll summarize it. It's written by Daniel Chaitlin and posted this evening.

Seems TFG saw Conway on CNN earlier this week and posted an unflattering photo of Conway on his Save America PAC with the question, "Is George Conway OK...?" TFG then answered his own question. "No, he's mentally ill, a very sick man. I don't know what Kellyanne did to him, but it must have been really bad. She has totally destroyed this guy -- his mind is completely shot!" (TFG at his bullying best.)

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-says-kellyanne-conway-totally-destroyed-her-mentally-ill-husband

CNN-plus shutting down before it really began. n/t