Rep. James Clyburn (D) of South Carolina said today on Meet the Press that he supports adding 4 new Justices to the Supreme Court. This would bring the total to 13. That is a common number people have focused on since there are 13 judicial circuits. In the distant past, the two numbers were kept in line. “13 is a pretty good number,” said Clyburn. “A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the Court.” This is a big deal. The particular number doesn’t really matter. I see adding 4 to get to 13 as sort of the minimum acceptable goal. But the point here is rapidly (in time for 2029) establishing Court expansion and reform more broadly as the consensus Democratic position. We don’t know if Democrats will get a trifecta in 2028. But it’s the first plausible opportunity to expand the Court. [snip]
The inertial forces against reform are massive. Even among many elected Democrats who are pretty good on other issues, it’s often a very heavy lift. It’s only very recently that Court reform has ever moved into the realm of conceivable for most of them. Change, building that consensus can only happen as a bottom-up process, making it clear that accepting the perpetuation of the Corrupt Court as it exists today is an unacceptable position for a Democrat, certainly at the federal level. As a bottom-up process, it can only be a public process. You’ll only know someone is on board when they say it publicly and clearly. Even then you can’t be totally sure. But once a politician has committed publicly, it’s much harder to shift. And when you’ve got the great majority publicly committing, the pressure heightens on those who remain opposed or silent in inverse proportion to their declining numbers. The same applies to abolishing the filibuster and a lot else.
As far as I know, Clyburn is the first Democrat in leadership in either House to announce for Court expansion, and one of the relative few generally. Jeffries has signaled general support or openness to reform in recent months. And that’s important too. But it only becomes hard and real when the details are attached. (our emphasis)
It's imperative that Democrats make every effort to expand the Republicans-in-robes Supreme Court, which long ago ceased to be a court of justice. You can't be a leader of the Democratic Party and not support this basic reform. Ideally a broader reform of the Federal judicial system would take place simultaneously to end the dilatory tactics used by the Malignant Fascist and deep-pocketed corporations to deny justice, among other reforms.
The Trump administration is shuttering two of the three U.S. Department of Agriculture research projects studying cyclospora, a foodborne parasite that has sickened thousands of Americans this summer, Politico reported on Sunday.
The two projects were defunded by [the Republican] Congress earlier this year, while the third is due to be moved in coming months from Maryland to Iowa as part of a broader USDA reorganization, according to the report.Although the third project remains funded, all scientists working on the parasite have declined to relocate to Iowa, Politico reported, citing people familiar with the plans and internal documents.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report."None of the research has been disrupted, and research will continue without disruption," a USDA spokesperson said, while pointing to [the Republican] Congress over the funding cuts.[The Republican] Congress did not appropriate funding for the two research projects that were being undertaken at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center outside Washington for the 2026 fiscal year in the Agriculture Appropriations Act, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding that the Agricultural Research Service is working with research leaders to ensure an orderly transition of the programs.Scientists researching foodborne parasites, including cyclospora, are retiring or leaving the USDA's ARS rather than relocating or being reassigned to other projects, the report said.Reuters reported earlier this week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded more than 17,000 confirmed cyclosporiasis cases across 48 states plus the District of Columbia, making it one of the largest foodborne illness outbreaks in recent U.S. history.At least 11,844 additional cases may require further investigation and analysis, the CDC said.
A lawsuit filed this month alleges that there’s a simple reason some stations in the Freedom Fuel Network — the chain of discount gas stations promoted by the White House — have been able to sell gas so cheaply: Some $4 million worth of the gas is stolen.
KRSM, the business named in the suit, denies this accusation.
Freedom Fuel stations located around Philadelphia and New Jersey burst into public view in the run-up to the July Fourth holiday, when President Donald Trump posted praise for their discounted pump prices, writing “They are doing this because they love the U.S.A.” The White House later posted a video of drivers filling up at one of the stations and thanking Trump for the low prices — at the time, $3.47 a gallon in honor of the 47th president, though they’ve since crept up.
Neither the White House nor the network’s owners would explain exactly how the stations were able to sell fuel far cheaper than their competitors. The White House told reporters that Freedom Fuel was simply a private company lowering its margins for patriotic reasons and declined to disclose the people behind it — who turned out to be a former New Jersey mayor and NFL special teams coach for the Baltimore Ravens, a GOP donor.
POLITICO’s reporting also linked six of the stations via business records to a New Jersey fuel businessperson named Shamikh Kazmi who, along with his brother Syed Kazmi, have been involved in several lawsuits. The Freedom Fuel Network’s website said that despite “misinformation and baseless speculation … Freedom Fuel Network is proudly lowering prices to benefit our community and strengthen our local economy.”
But according to a complaint filed Aug. 19 by Georgia-based fuel supplier Mansfield Oil Co. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Syed Kazmi’s company KRSM acquired over 1 million gallons of fuel from a Sunoco terminal in Twin Oaks valued at around $4 million — and never paid for it. KRSM sold some of the fuel, the lawsuit alleges, to stations within the Freedom Fuel Network, which now claims to operate 29 locations.
“KRSM was able to sell such fuel for such low prices and garner such publicity because it never paid Plaintiffs for such fuel,” reads the complaint. [snip]
Companies associated with the Kazmis have previously been subject to other lawsuits alleging fraudulent activity and theft. For instance, a federal judge entered judgment in February in favor of a fuel distributor that alleged in a civil lawsuit that Shamikh Kazmi’s company had taken roughly $667,000 worth of fuel over 10 days in August 2021 without fully paying for it. Shamikh Kazmi denied the allegations, but the court entered a default judgment after what the judge described as the defendants and their lawyers’ “serial flouting of Court orders and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure” during the case.
In another suit, 7-Eleven accused Syed Kazmi’s KRSM in 2022 of stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of cigarettes, and the judge again found in favor of the plaintiff in 2024. KRSM disputed 7-Eleven’s allegations of breach of contract, claiming 7-Eleven was the one that breached the contract... (our emphasis)
Of course they'd be aligned with the fraudster-in-chief, the deadbeat who always tried to stiff his contractors (watch out Golden Ballroom guys!)! Game recognizes game, and all that. It's every crook for himself in this Most. Corrupt. Regime. Ever.
