It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some s*** you need to know.
Yes, sir.
There is always stuff you need to know.
I wish I could say the word because some days you really want to say the word.
Democrats asked the Supreme Court to halt a Virginia ruling blocking the new congressional districts.
Yes, Democrats yesterday filed an emergency appeal with the U.S.
Supreme Court seeking a halt.
seeking to halt a Virginia ruling invalidating a ballot measure that would have given their party an additional four winnable U.S.
House seats.
The move came after the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a constitutional amendment that voters narrowly passed just last month.
That's an important part to repeat that voters, voters supported this and they passed it.
Now, narrowly is, narrowly is key too, but the voters, they voted on it.
The 4-3 state court decision found that the Democratic control legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had begun in the Virginia's, in Virginia's general election election last fall.
Democrats argued unsuccessfully.
that the U.S.
Supreme Court has held that even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.
Now, the appeal is the latest twist in the nation's... Zomber, stop moving all over the thing.
Sorry, the appeal is the latest twist in the nation's mid-decade redistricting competition.
It was kicked off last year by a recent Supreme Court ruling that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.
Yes, we're still
We will be suffering the consequences of that for a while.
Lawyers for Virginia Democrats said the state's Democratic Attorney General, Jay Jones, wrote, the court overrode the will of the people who ratified the amendment by ordering the Commonwealth to conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.
The irreparable harm resulting from the Supreme Court of Virginia's decision is profound and immediate.
And those are in case you're not familiar with the.
shadow docket will hopefully be talking about that soon.
But part of what gets the Supreme Court to take a case on this shadow docket, which bypasses the rest of the court system for a temporary decision is that something causes profound immediate and unrelated damage or damage that is long lasting.
So
That seems to fit.
That's what they're going for.
The filing is a sign of democratic desperation after the Virginia decision to bribe them of four winnable house seats in the mid-decade redistricting.
The filing is a sign that they need to get on there and we know that the house is holding things up because of Donald Trump saying that we need to kick off
this and we need to read district.
All right, some more stuff you need to know.
Supreme Court temporarily extends a woman's access to a widely used abortion pill.
We talked about this last week when it was first shut down in Georgia.
The Supreme Court is leaving women's access to a widely used abortion pill untouched until at least Thursday, while justices consider whether to allow restrictions on the drug, Mephaprestone, to take effect.
Samuel Leto's Order Monday allows women seeking abortions to continue obtaining the pill at pharmacies or through the mail without an in-person visit to a doctor.
It prevents restrictions on Mephaprestone imposed by a federal appeals court from taking effect.
for the time being now this is the second if you remember when the ruling came down from the appeals court it stopped it the supreme court issued the first extension or the first pause on that ruling now this is the second one the court is dealing with its latest abortion controversy four years after the conservative majority overturned roe versus wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright case before the court
uh stems from a lawsuit in Louisiana.
I said Georgia I misspoke.
Louisiana filed to roll back the FDA rules on how meffeprestone can be prescribed.
The state claims the policy undermines the ban there and it questions the safety of the drug which was first approved in 2000 and has repeatedly been deemed safe by the effective safe and effective by FDA sciences and if you don't remember this allows women to be prescribed this drug through
telehealth appointments.
So you don't have to travel somewhere, you don't have to see a doctor, but you do still have to consult with a physician before you get the prescription.
Lower courts concluded that Louisiana is likely to prevail and a three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mail access and telehealth visits should be suspended while the case plays out.
So...
We will see what happens but this is a good news.
Good news for people who are trying to avail themselves of this particular drug and it's again a little step back in the right direction for women and your autonomy over your health decisions and your own body.
Now we will see if the
decision holds or if the Supreme Court does end up jumping in and making a final verdict this is just kicking the can down the road for another two days.
So come Friday we'll see what's happening.
All right, there's some more stuff you need to know this a little closer to home.
A Dane County judge ruled last week that lawmakers could not block administrative rules that had been through the rulemaking process and received approval from Governor Tony Evers.
Evers and the Republican led legislature have been fighting over administrative rulemaking abilities for years.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided in its July 2025 evers versus Markline II ruling that statutes allowing a legislative committee to pause or suspend administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.
So following this decision, Evers started taking steps to implement 12 administrative rules he had previously approved without getting signed off from legislative committees.
Republican lawmakers responded by instructing the Legislative Reference Bureau, the LRB, not to publish any rule that hadn't gone through a review by the legislature.
Evers sued last September to block the lawmakers action.
Judge Nia Trammell granted Evert's request for a declaration that the LRB publish all administrative rules that have gone through the rulemaking procedures and have been approved by the governor.
Now in the ruling Trammell said that a rule can go into effect because there isn't a statute prohibiting promulgation of a rule even if a standing committee has not completed a review and if one did exist it would be facially unconstitutional.
There's a lot of legal words there, but basically the governor wins Evers said in a statement that the decision is a win for Wisconsin and our efforts to continue restoring the balance of power in Wisconsin The governor has had some big wins.
We're gonna talk about the biggest one on the other side of this after swipe or stay We'll get into that big package, but right now again, it's funny that we still We cannot get the assembly and the governor on the same page
for certain things and then they come together for big things.
So we'll talk about that big thing in just a few minutes.
One more thing you need to know.
So this is going to sound good on the surface.
We'll see how it plays out.
The president is saying he said this yesterday he is going to move to suspend the federal tax on gasoline to help Americans shoulder surging fuel prices caused by the war.
which is odd because if you remember just the day before, which would have been Sunday over the weekend, he said that gas prices were going down.
He actually on camera said that gas prices are going down.
We're all making too much of this.
So I don't know why we would need help then if gas prices are going down.
But it's a nice way to try to curry favor with voters when your approval ratings are in the garbage.
The president, however,
cannot suspend the federal tax on his own.
Congress would have to approve the move.
We know that the president doesn't like trifling with Congress, but in this case, I have a feeling that this would be a bipartisan thing because lawmakers from both parties have pushed for gas tax suspension saying it would provide much needed relief for families and businesses that rely on their cars and trucks to get to work in school and run everyday errands.
The gas tax Currently is about 18 and a half cents per gallon 24 24 and a half cents on diesel fuel.
So all right yesterday I paid 489 you do the math it would take me down to like still about 460 maybe 470 49-20 is yeah, that's 469 so about 470 that's still a lot now
Symbolically does it help us?
I guess if you're buying if you're filling up your tank 20 cents a gallon less You're saving a couple of bucks But you're still paying way more than you did just two months ago so So gas as of Monday the national average was 450 to a gallon according to AAA 50% higher than the average price
Just before the war started the average price was just under three dollars.
So 18 and a half cents doesn't get us back there It's a nice talking point and I know in Illinois.
They've tried that a couple times where they got rid of the Illinois tax and Yes, you want to be able to say oh every penny helps but in the long run when everything else is so much expense so expensive
Does everything help?
As per reporters at the White House, how long the tax should be suspended, the president said, until it's appropriate.
It is only a small percentage of the gas price.
It's still money, Trump said.
They're coming from a guy who doesn't have to pay for anything and is making billions while being president.
So as gas prices spiked, the administration has released millions of barrels of oil from the U.S.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve and temporary lifted sanctions on some Russian and Iranian oil shipments.
But you know that doesn't help because we, yes, we produce a lot of oil.
We export a lot of oil, but we import more than we import more because that's what we use to make the gasoline.
So Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said on social media yesterday that he will introduce legislation to suspend the gas tax.
Democrats have previously sponsored similar legislation.
Representative Ana Paulina Luna from Florida also said in a post on X that she will introduce a bill to suspend the federal gas tax in light of Trump's recent remarks.
How many bills do we just how about everybody just do one?
Let's just get let's just get behind one and get going now.
All right.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he has not been a fan of gas tax suspension, but added, you know, I've got some colleagues out there who think it's a good idea, so we'll hear them out.
And he's from South Dakota.
He said he'd prefer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to normalize gas prices without legislation.
Who wouldn't?
I think we would all, all like to do that.
All right.
Well, that is stuff you need to know.
