Tonight we have dissents from both Sotomayor and Breyer in the last instance of the Supreme Court waving the matador's cape for Trump's machinery of death without so much as a word of reasoned justification

Trump's DOJ has moved with unseemly haste in order to preempt credible legal challenges, and the Court has happily gone along
"This is not justice"
The Supreme Court did not meet the standard required to grant cert before a judgment by the lower court
The actual reason for the extraordinary haste is that the people have chosen a president who opposes the death penalty, and the 6 bloodthirsty Republican-nominated justices want the executions to happen. But this is not a *legal* reason.
And this is a consistent theme with Trump's flurry of last-minute executions. People are executed with important and material legal questions being unresolved because the Court won't allow them to be
The Supreme Court, without explanation, allowed the execution of two prisoners who the state allowed to get COVID-19, increasing the risk that lethal injection tortured them to death.
Brandon Bernard did not kill anybody, and almost certainly only got a capital sentence because the prosecution withheld evidence and elicited false testimony, but was unable to get these claims adjudicated before Trump, Barr, and the Roberts 6 killed him.
Two of the Trump/Barr/Roberts executions almost certainly violated the federal statutory prohibition on executing mentally handicapped people
More on Corey Johnson's case here: https://t.co/GOZEvujyrU
Two of the Trump/Barr/Roberts executions involved prisoners so mentally ill they probably didn't understand wt they were being killed, and who once again did not get a fair hearing for their claims:
A reminder that Lisa Montgomery's mental illnesses and disabilities were largely the product of having her spent her teenage years being gang-raped by her stepfather and abused and trafficked by her mother. Executing her is an unspeakably vile act https://t.co/u1IeJOBp98
The Republican majority of the Roberts Court has, quite simply, refused to adequately perform one of its gravest responsibilities because it fears a democratically elected president will not share their appetite for death. Absolutely appalling.
And keep this in mind when Republican elites give the "but muh judges" defense of supporting 4 years of Trump's depravity. What they want judges to do is stuff like "allow the state to kill a bunch of people, many of them severely mentally handicapped, without due process."
Also worth adding that Dustin Higgs also did not kill anybody. These cases illustrate the idea that the death penalty is applied only to the most serious offenders is farcical https://t.co/3NUlc402bg
Dustin Higgs has officially become the 13th person executed in a last minute flurry of arbitrary violence by the worst president in American history https://t.co/7g3poxWvyG

More from Law

This thread will debunk "the judges didn't look at evidence" nonsense that has been going around.

Over and over again, judges have gone out of their way to listen to the evidence and dismantle it, enjoy the carnage!

1/

Bowyer v. Ducey (Sidney Powell's case in Arizona)

"Plaintiffs have not moved the
needle for their fraud theory from conceivable to plausible"

This is a great opinion to start with. The Judge completely dismantles the nonsense brought before her.

2/

https://t.co/F2vllUhM2G


King vs. Whitmer (Michigan, Sidney Powell case)

"Nothing but speculation and conjecture"

This is a good one to show people who think affidavits are good evidence. Notice how the affidavits don't actually say they saw fraud happen in Detroit.

3/

https://t.co/NZAtqivWkL


Trump v. Benson (Michigan)

"hearsay within hearsay"

Another good one to show people who think affidavits are absolute proof.

4/

https://t.co/17GeGhImHF


Stoddard v. City Election Commission (Michigan)

"mere speculation"

/5

https://t.co/ekqYEqiIL9
1/n How come we still have academics sustaining narratives of #obesity rather than of how real people find value & meaning in everyday lives? Revisit @whatsthepont on @tobyjlowe / @snowded & accept criticising "neoliberal" does not make things

New out 🤯 A review which says lots about the academic context in which it was written - with its embedded behaviorist fixations on just implementing *better* - with complete disregard for the unintended consequences of treating "agency" as a dirty word

In all #becausehuman fields, we see justifiable professional kick-back at reductionist agendas driven by a focus on #obesity & nonsensical CMO guidance of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development


What's fundamentally missing is not just a respect for complexity. It's respect for Homo-Narrans - for the ordinary, everyday story-telling folk all around us whose aspirations & dispositions provide the context in which we find meaning, purpose & value

We don't need spurious arguments against initiatives... but let's consider ethics & unintended consequences - on which, see @snowded (especially around epistemic justice) #becausehuman
https://t.co/gu97xDEamB
https://t.co/E1GzCdCfLA
https://t.co/bKowDAgARQ
https://t.co/evzYMBPwvZ

You May Also Like

Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.