MMR December 14 2023 - Impeach Gratia Impeachment

"Israel's ambassador to the UK has said the country would not accept a two-state solution after the war in Gaza ends.

Asked about the prospect of Palestinians having their own state, Tzipi Hotovely told Sky News: "Absolutely no."

The two-state solution is the idea that establishing an independent Palestine alongside Israel would create a way for the two peoples to co-exist peacefully.

The policy is supported by Israel's close ally the US and other Western nations.

Asked about how there could be peace in the region without a two-state solution, Hotovely said "the world should know now that the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel".

Conservative justices on the Supreme Court Tuesday let a Galveston County, Texas map — which both federal district and appellate courts have found to be a racial gerrymander — stand Tuesday without explaining their decision.



The three liberals dissented.



The case may seem niche, as it concerns the map governing the election of county commissioners in Galveston, but it presses on a glaring threat to the Voting Rights Act.



U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Donald Trump appointee, ruled that the map was racially discriminatory in October and ordered a redraw. His decision was affirmed unanimously — but reluctantly — by a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, which wrote that the map was a violation of the VRA as it stands, but that the case law is wrong. The judges argued that the VRA does not actually protect districts composed of multiple minority groups (rather than one minority group), and asked the 5th Circuit to take up the case en banc and reverse its own precedent.



There is a circuit split on the issue of VRA protection of multicoalitional districts, where minority groups lack significant voting power by themselves, but can swing the seat if they vote the same way. These districts are becoming more electorally powerful, particularly as minority voters move into suburbs surrounding major cities.



The 5th Circuit agreed to take up the case en banc. After some back and forth, the court ultimately ruled that it was too close to the election to use new maps — despite the lower court’s ordering of a remedial map to be drawn two months ago — an invocation of the Purcell principle that right-wing judges enjoy using sporadically. That means that the map, which the district judge and 5th Circuit panel have both found to be a racial gerrymander, stands.



Black voters in Galveston appealed to the Supreme Court to vacate that stay and let them use new maps, but the Court’s conservatives rejected that plea on Tuesday.



Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the dissenting liberals.



“The Fifth Circuit’s stay itself disrupted the status quo — an election map concededly lawful under Circuit precedent and nearly identical to the maps that have governed the election of Galveston County’s commissioners for decades,” Kagan wrote. “In imposing a different map, acknowledged to violate current law — on the theory that the Circuit might someday change that law — the Court of Appeals went far beyond its proper authority.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -More than two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a defense policy bill on Thursday that includes a record $886 billion in annual military spending and authorizes policies such as aid for Ukraine and push back against China in the Indo-Pacific.

The House backed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, by 310 to 118, with strong support from Republicans and Democrats. It was more than the two-thirds majority required to pass the measure and send it to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.

Separate from the appropriations bills that set government spending levels, the NDAA authorizes everything from pay raises for troops - this year's will be 5.2% - to purchases of ships, ammunition and aircraft.

Because it is one of the few major pieces of legislation that becomes law every year, members of Congress use it as a vehicle for a wide range of initiatives. It is also closely watched by major defense companies, such as Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp and other firms that receive Department of Defense contracts.

The vote for this year's bill, which is nearly 3,100 pages long and authorizes a record $886 billion, up 3% from last year, meant that Congress has passed an NDAA for 63 straight years.