Mon: Stop Calling These Radical Justices "Conservative."

This Sounds Like Housing Discrimination to Me

A new retirement community in Gastonia, North Carolina known as "1776 Gastonia" is going all-out on the theme of patriotism — to the point where bylaws will require every resident to fly an American flag on their house, reportedThe Guardian.

"The 17 June groundbreaking of a future suburban neighborhood in Gastonia, North Carolina, had all the trappings of a campaign rally. Brock Fankhauser, the real estate developer of 1776 Gastonia, waved to onlookers from the open top of a sport-utility vehicle; his wife, Nicole, was by his side, wearing a cowboy hat and matching T-shirt with the development’s namesake year, referring to the American Revolution," reported Victoria Bouloubasis. "This development, which the company has described as 'where freedom lives', is for homeowners 55 and older. And not just any homeowners: 'patriots' who will be required to fly the US flag on their properties, on a pole provided and maintained by the subdivision. Each 1776 community (Fankhauser plans on more) will also donate a home with no mortgage, free of cost, to a wounded veteran through the nonprofit Building Homes for Heroes."

Does the Right to Free Speech Include the Right Not to Speak?

A Texas couple wants to remove a historic balcony from their home because of its racist connotations – but their city won't let them, according to a report.

Kristy Money and her husband Rolf Straubhaar have sued San Marcos and its director of planning and development services over the wrought iron balcony installed by a previous homeowner who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan, reported KXAN-TV.

“It doesn’t represent our family’s values,” Money said.

Previous homeowner Frank Zimmerman, who also owned a theater that hosted Ku Klux Klan events in the 1920s, installed a metal "Z" symbol associated with the hate group, which the couple said they did not know about when they bought the house.

“We felt a bit heartbroken. We wanted to do our best to, to be a force for good,” Money said. “Teach our kids anti-racism values. We weren’t going to ignore it.”

They applied for permission from the city’s Historic Preservation Commission to remove the emblem, but the request was unanimously denied at the board's May 4 meeting after some members described the "Z" as a defining element of the house.

“That’s the whole point of being in a historic district, you know, to kind of like respect the past,” one commission member said.

The couple has filed a lawsuit challenging the local ordinance that allows the commission to decide what homeowners can do with their property in the Burleson Historic District, and their attorney argued that authority violated constitutional protections.

“We believe that both under the United States Constitution and the Texas Constitution when you regulate someone’s property, it has to be based in nuisance or harm, or something that actually falls within the general powers of government,” said attorney Chance Weldon.

"Vote For Me. I Have a Syndicated Column."

Republican presidential candidate Larry Elder argued that he should be the next commander-in-chief of the United States because he has written a syndicated column for years.

During an interview on Fox News, guest host Jason Chaffetz asked Elder why voters should select him over the other candidates.

"They should rally behind me because I've been talking about conservative issues for 40 years," Elder said. "I have a syndicated column. I've been writing articles about this, 1,200 articles altogether, half a dozen books altogether, 30,000 hours of radio over the last 30 years.

"You can trust me," he added. "I'm an America First guy."

He's Been Wrong for 40 Years. I Guess That Qualifies Him.

Ukraine war: The lethal minefields holding up Kyiv's counter-offensive

As Ukraine's long-anticipated counterattack has not yet achieved the sort of speed and momentum that some had hoped for - including President Volodymyr Zelensky who admitted it was "slower than desired". A range of soldiers we've spoken to on different sections of the frontline have blamed Russian minefields for at least part of that delay.

"Of course, it slows down the movement of troops," said the commander of a nine-man sapper squad with the call sign Dill. He'd just finished a de-mining mission on the nearby frontlines to the east of the tiny, ruined village of Predtechyne, outside Bakhmut. He laid out an array of deactivated Russian mines on the ground beneath a tree, taking care to make sure he could not be spotted by Russian drones overhead.

Get the Truck Out of Here!

In the midst of the Covid pandemic, with consumers buying up goods for their lockdown lifestyles and supply chains snarled, Arnesha Barron saw a moment to make her dream of starting her own trucking company come true.

The 39-year-old single mother of three teenagers had worked for six years driving a semitruck across the country as an employee of a trucking company. But in 2021, as shipping rates surged, she decided to strike out on her own. She took out a loan for a new $175,000 truck and was soon taking home as much as $20,000 a month in profit.

“It was amazing. I was a teen parent. I had my first child at 15 and all the odds were against me,” Barron said. “I had all three of my children graduate from high school while I was in a truck and I still made it happen.”

But like thousands of other truck drivers across the country, Barron’s fortunes didn’t last long. Over the past year, shipping rates have tumbled, leaving her and other drivers who bet big on the trucking boom struggling to make a living.

The number of trucking companies, many consisting of just a single truck and driver, increased by 50% between the start of the pandemic and the end of last year, with workers lured to the industry by record pay from companies desperate to move their goods and social media influencers promoting trucking as a way to get rich quick, said Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. But as consumer spending has eased over the past year and the volume of goods needing to be shipped has returned to pre-pandemic levels, there is less demand for all those drivers — creating competition that has driven down shipping rates.

“Basically, the good times have come and gone,” said Spencer. “There’s a shakeout in the works right now, and it’s more than likely going to continue throughout this year.”

As shipping rates have fallen, a growing number of drivers have found themselves unable to keep operating, with 15,000 trucking companies shutting down their operations since October 2022, the majority being owner-operators with just one truck, said Dean Croke, principal analyst for DAT, a trucking logistics and analytics firm. He estimates another 2,000 carriers may have to leave the market before the supply of drivers meets the demand.

A Legacy of Discimination

A civil rights group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University, saying the practice discriminates against students of color by giving an unfair boost to the mostly white children of alumni.

It’s the latest effort in a growing push against legacy admissions, the practice of giving admissions priority to the children of alumni. Backlash against the practice has been building in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court’s decision ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit based in Boston, filed the suit Monday on behalf of Black and Latino community groups in New England, alleging that Harvard’s admissions system violates the Civil Rights Act.

“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director. “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.”

Opponents say the practice is no longer defensible without affirmative action providing a counterbalance. The court’s ruling says colleges must ignore the race of applicants, activists point out, but schools can still give a boost to the children of alumni and donors.

A separate campaign is urging the alumni of 30 prestigious colleges to withhold donations until their schools end legacy admissions. That initiative, led by Ed Mobilizer, also targets Harvard and other Ivy League schools.