Destroyed Russian drone base

Ukraine says it destroyed Russian drone base

By Matt Murphy

Ukraine says satellite pictures show the destruction of a Russian warehouse used to launch Iranian-made drones and to train cadets.

The photos - posted by Ukraine's Navy - follow reports of a massive explosion near a Russian airfield in the southern region of Krasnodar.

Moscow has yet to comment on the reports, but did say it has shot down a number of drones in the region overnight on Friday.

Navy officials in Kyiv said a number of training instructors and cadets learning to operate the Iranian-made Shahed drones were killed by the attack, which they said happened on Friday night.

In a post to Telegram, Navy officials in Kyiv said the operation was planned and conducted in partnership with Ukrainian intelligence agencies.

The base sat on the Sea of Azov opposite the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, data from Planet Labs - the US-based company who took the photos - showed.

"New satellite images confirm the destruction on the night of June 21 of the Shahed-136/Geran-2 storage and preparation facilities, training buildings, control and communication points of these UAVs located in the Krasnodar Territory," naval officials wrote in a post to Facebook.

The photos posted to social media appeared to show two large warehouses bisected by a road running north-south on 11 April. Subsequent photos taken on Saturday showed one of the warehouses completely destroyed, with the other having sustained significant damage.

Russia said on Friday that it had shot down 114 drones during a Ukrainian attack on oil refineries and military targets in the south of the country. Officials said that one person was killed by falling debris, but did not mention the attack on the drone base.

In another development, Russia has said it holds the US responsible after a missile fired by Ukraine killed at least four people in occupied Crimea, including two children.

Local Russian officials said more than 140 others needed treatment for shock and shrapnel wounds when missile fragments hit a crowded beach at Uchkuyevka, near the city of Sevastopol.

Russia's defence ministry said four of five projectiles had been destroyed by air defences, but debris from the interceptions fell on coastal areas. Officials said the attack used US-supplied ATACMS missiles and claimed US specialists had set the co-ordinates for the strike.

Elsewhere, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region said further Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on Sunday left one person dead and three more injured.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said one of the drones destroyed a car park in Graivoron - about six kilometres (3.7 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, officials in Kyiv said two people were injured and scores of residential buildings were damaged in a Russian missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital on Saturday night.

Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the Kyiv regional administration, said the people were injured by falling debris. He noted that six tower blocks, 20 private homes and several shops were damaged in the attack.

Ukraine's air force said it destroyed two of three missiles launched by Russia towards the Kyiv region.

During his nightly address from the capital, President Volodymyr Zelensky once again renewed his appeal to Western nations to supply new air defences to Ukraine, specifically calling for Us-made Patriot systems.

"Ukraine needs the necessary forces and means to destroy the carriers of these bombs, particularly Russian combat aviation wherever it is," he said.

Elite Universities??????

The Sad Truth About Elite Universities

A year after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, top colleges have shown their commitment to racial diversity was never real.

Opinion by EVAN MANDERY

When the Supreme Court effectively ended race-based affirmative action one year ago, it was possible even for passionate defenders of the practice to hope for a narrow silver lining: The colleges with the nation’s highest endowments — who’d most ardently defended affirmative action — would be forced to find alternative ways to maintain some measure of diversity in their student bodies. One could even imagine an expansion of opportunity for poor students of color.

Instead, the opposite has happened.

A handful of schools, including Amherst and Johns Hopkins, had ended the practice of giving admissions to the children of alumni — so called legacy preferences — in the years before affirmative action was struck down. Seven more ended the practice after the Supreme Court’s decision last year, and for a minute it appeared the dominoes would fall — but then no other college followed suit.

Meanwhile, many have doubled down on legacy preference and other mechanisms of exclusion that drive the massive wealth disparities on these campuses. And no “elite” college has made an explicit commitment to give a leg up in the admissions process based on socioeconomic disadvantage — the most obvious mechanism for promoting diversity. For several years now, at Harvard and 37 other U.S. colleges and universities, more students have come from the top 1 percent of the income distribution than the bottom 60 percent.

The reality is so little has been done in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling that the dynamics of the case seem fundamentally different in retrospect. With the first anniversary of the decision approaching, it now seems more accurate to describe the antagonists in the case as silent partners in a shared project of preserving the American elite.

Superficially, the litigants in SFFA v. Harvard were fierce adversaries. Edward Blum, the conservative agitator who forged the group known as Students for Fair Admissions, devoted nearly two decades to ending affirmative action. The lead defendant, Harvard University, spent a reported $25 million litigating the case, which it framed in existential terms. Its chief diversity and inclusion officer called “diverse communities” essential to the “educational mission of higher education” and the “success of students.”

But there was another option for Harvard (and its peers) all along. It could have significantly increased diversity by ending or significantly curtailing the admissions tips, or special treatment, the college offers to athletes, legacies, donors and the children of alumni and staff — so called “ALDC” preferences — which are known to mostly benefit affluent white people. At Harvard, where more than 15 percent of students come from the top 1 percent, 30 percent of admitted students are an ALDC. Seventy percent of these are white.

Reducing or eliminating ALDC preferences also would have reduced the chances of the case reaching the Supreme Court in the first place — an important strategic consideration given that it was predictable and predicted that, afforded the opportunity, the right-leaning court would end affirmative action. Since ending ALDC preferences would have been a race-neutral means of increasing diversity it would have created no issue under the equal protection clause.

But Harvard rejected that path. In 2015, the college convened a committee to explore race-neutral ways to increase diversity. It concluded that no “workable” race-neutral admissions practices could maintain “the standards of excellence that Harvard seeks in its student body.”

At trial, U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs bought the committee’s argument. Ending ALDC preferences, she said, would jeopardize important institutional interests, including making Harvard “far less competitive in Ivy League intercollegiate sports.” So, instead of deciding the case on the basis that Harvard could have achieved its diversity goals by race-neutral means, the issue was teed up for the Supreme Court to end race-based affirmative action for all time, despite the compelling claims of Black students descended from slavery and victimized by Harvard’s segregationist history.

At oral argument, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas focused on the hypocrisy in Harvard’s position. Thomas noted that lowering ALDC rates would allow the college to significantly increase class diversity. “I don’t think it’s arguable that Harvard is socioeconomically diverse,” he said. Gorsuch noted that ALDCs were disproportionately white and wealthy. “Still,” he wrote, “Harvard stands by them.” They became part of the 6-2 majority that held Harvard’s admissions policies unconstitutional.

After the decision, many advocates for reducing inequality in higher education expected that Harvard and its peers would end legacy preference. Before SFFA, one could imagine these colleges saying in an aw-shucks-kind-of-way that they do this virtuous thing (affirmative action) so give us a pass on this naughty indulgence (legacy preference). After the court’s ruling, that position was no longer tenable.

Moreover, legacy preference is enormously unpopular. Seventy-five percent of Americans oppose the practice, including nearly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. It’s the rare issue with bipartisan support.

For that matter, elite colleges are increasingly unpopular too. Only 36 percent of Americans have significant confidence in higher education. Harvard’s support is at a record low.

With most elite colleges failing to act on their own, policymakers have begun to take the issue on themselves. Half a dozen states are considering eliminating legacy preference in some form, and the proposals are winning broad support. Virginia’s recently enacted ban on legacy preference at public universities passed its House and Senate unanimously. Colorado ended the practice in 2021. Now California, often a national trendsetter, is moving forward with a bill targeting private colleges. At the federal level, there’s a civil rights complaint against Harvard currently being investigated by the Department of Education.

Still, the news has been largely bleak for socioeconomically disadvantaged students of color.

In April, Duke University announced it was ending a scholarship program for Black students, even while it continues legacy preference since, it says, “Family ties that span generations are a valued part of our tradition.”

Brown University recently convened a committee to examine its admissions practices in light of “Brown’s commitments to academic excellence, access and diversity.” Its recommendations? In addition to maintaining support for “applicants with family connections,” the committee called for Brown to continue to offer early decision — despite its well-known negative impact on low-income students and students of color — and return to requiring standardized tests.

The SAT had fallen out of favor during the pandemic amid growing concerns it was fueling inequality. After all, affluent students have far more resources to spend on what has become a test prep-industrial complex. But now the exam is back with a vengeance, with Dartmouth and Yale among the schools reinstating the SAT requirement. Some colleges like Yale contend that the return to the exam advances the interests of academically talented low-income students, but it’s hard to take this claim seriously when they’ve doubled down on ALDC preferences.

Moreover, the data broadly suggests the SAT further advantages the wealthy. One prominent recent study showed that students from families in the top 1 percent of the income distribution are 13 times more likely than students from the bottom quintile to reach 1300 on the test. They’re also far more likely to have the assistance of a private admissions counselor — who charge tens of thousands of dollars.

Shortly after the Supreme Court issued its decision in SFFA, then-Harvard President Larry Bacow said the university would preserve its “essential values.” It’s clear now what these essential values are — to solidify the status of the rich and the richest.

Not Funny....

 

Failing everywhere.....

The Boeing saga has reached a new level of absurdity

Analysis by Elisabeth Buchwald

If you’re a PR person, I can’t possibly think of a harder job right now than working at Boeing. It’s not just clean-up on aisle six, it’s clean up the entire store, loading dock and parking lot on a daily — if not hourly — basis.

And boy did Boeing have to bring out a lot of mops on Thursday. But this time, it kinda, sorta just maybe wasn’t Boeing’s fault.

Let me explain.

Boeing held a press conference from a factory in Renton, Washington, on Thursday to talk about quality improvements.

But Boeing surely knew that they’d get asked about the door plug that blew off a 737 Max on an Alaska Airlines flight in January. So Elizabeth Lund, senior vice president of quality at Boeing, didn’t bother beating around the bush.

Lund kicked off the briefing by sharing why the four bolts needed to hold the door plug in place were never installed before the plane left the factory in October: paperwork. The workers who needed to reinstall the bolts never had the work order telling them the work needed to be done, my colleagues Gregory Wallace and Chris Isidore reported.

“The fact that one employee could not fill out one piece of paperwork in this condition and could result in an accident was shocking to all of us,” Lund said.

The lack of paperwork was not new information. It was previously disclosed in testimony before the US Senate Commerce Committee by none other than the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, the government agency leading the investigation. But strangely enough, Boeing sharing that information itself got Boeing in trouble with the NTSB.

The agency reprimanded Boeing Thursday, saying it had “blatantly violated” the agency’s rules.

The violation, per an NTSB statement, was sharing “investigative information” and giving “an analysis of factual information previously released.”

This would basically be like your friend making a public Instagram announcement saying she’s pregnant, prompting you to post on your story saying something like, “My best friend is going to be a mom!” And then the friend sends you an angry text demanding you take it down because it’s private information and you aren’t allowed to comment on it.

“As a party to many NTSB investigations over the past decades, few entities know the rules better than Boeing,” the NTSB said (yeah, government agencies throw shade too sometimes). But the NTSB is taking matters even further, saying it will no longer share any information generated by the NTSB during its investigation and that it would be referring Boeing’s conduct to the Department of Justice, meaning there could be a potential criminal probe.

The NTSB declined to provide any further comment to CNN.

Clean up, clean up everybody everywhere

When the NTSB’s statement went out, Boeing’s PR team went back into crisis clean-up mode.

I admit it’s hard to take anything they say at face value, and part of my job as a journalist is to be skeptical and question any claims PR people make. But I think there’s an ounce (okay, maybe closer to a quarter ounce) of truth in Boeing’s response to the NTSB.

It said it held the briefing in an effort to “take responsibility” and be transparent, adding that it “shared context on the lessons we have learned from the January 5 accident.”

“We deeply regret that some of our comments, intended to make clear our responsibility in the accident and explain the actions we are taking, overstepped the NTSB’s role as the source of investigative information,” Boeing said Thursday.

Without giving Boeing too much credit, at least some executives were trying to take a sliver of ownership. But apparently, that’s an NTSB violation. At the same time, rules are rules no matter how hypocritical they are. Boeing probably should have treaded more carefully.

When CNN reached out to Boeing, a spokesperson responded, “We defer to the NTSB for information regarding the investigation.”

The irony in all this is the NTSB’s reaction is distracting from the more glaring story here: how a simple thing like a lack of paperwork may have endangered a plane full of people.

Another another disaster....

Homeless people can be ticketed for sleeping outside, Supreme Court rules

By Devan Cole and John Fritze

The Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of an Oregon city that ticketed homeless people for sleeping outside, rejecting arguments that such “anti-camping” ordinances violate the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for the 6-3 conservative majority, with the three liberal justices dissenting.

The case centered on “anti-camping” ordinances in Grants Pass, Oregon, that were challenged by several residents experiencing homelessness.

It had been watched closely by city and state officials who are uncertain how to respond to a surge in homelessness and encampments that have cropped up under bridges and in city parks across the nation. It’s also being followed by people who live in those encampments and are alarmed by efforts to criminalize the population rather than build shelters and affordable housing.

“The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy,” Gorsuch wrote in his majority opinion.

Gorsuch wrote that “Homelessness is complex” and that “its causes are many.”

“People will disagree over which policy responses are best; they may experiment with one set of approaches only to find later another set works better; they may find certain responses more appropriate for some communities than others,” he wrote. “But in our democracy, that is their right. Nor can a handful of federal judges begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberals that the ruling punishes people for being homeless.

“Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime,” Sotomayor wrote. “For some people, sleeping outside is their only option.” The city, she said, “punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

In a move that underscored her discontent with the court’s ruling, Sotomayor took the rare step of reading her dissent from the bench on Friday.

The ordinances barred people from sleeping in public with “bedding,” which can include sleeping bags or bundled-up clothing. Each violation of the ordinances carried a $295 fine, which increased to more than $500 if not paid. After two tickets, police could order a person to avoid a park for 30 days. Anyone who violated that order could have been sentenced to 30 days in jail.

A federal appeals court ruled against the city, holding that Grants Pass could not “enforce its anticamping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there was no other place in the city for them to go.”

Grants Pass argued that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishment was aimed at torture or hard labor sentences, not tickets. An attorney for the city told the justices that the appeals court ruling “tied cities’ hands by constitutionalizing the policy debate over how to address growing encampments.”

“These are low-level fines and very short jail terms for repeat offenders that are in effect in many other jurisdictions,” the attorney, Theane Evangelis, said during the April 22 oral arguments. “This is not unusual in any way. It is certainly not cruel.”

During oral arguments, several of the justices appeared concerned about the prospect of criminalizing homelessness but they also worried about limiting a city’s ability to regulate public health or fire hazards in homeless encampments across the country.

“Sleeping is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing,” Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, said at one point. “You can say breathing is conduct, too, but presumably you would not think that it’s OK to criminalize breathing in public. And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public.”

On any given night, more than 650,000 people in the United States are experiencing homelessness, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. That number increased 12% from 2022 to 2023.

Another disaster...

Supreme Court overturns 1984 Chevron precedent, curbing power of federal government

By John Fritze

The Supreme Court on Friday significantly weakened the power of federal agencies to approve regulations in a major decision that could have sweeping implications for the environment, public health and the workplace.

The 6-3 ruling, overturning a precedent from 1984, will shift the balance of power between the executive and judicial branches and hands an important victory to conservatives who have sought for years to rein in the regulatory authority of the “administrative state.”

The lawsuits were filed by two groups of herring fishermen challenging a Commerce Department regulation requiring them to pay the salaries of government observers who board their vessels to monitor the catch. But the decision will net a far wider swath of federal regulations affecting many facets of American life.

The decision overturns the Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council precedent that required courts to give deference to federal agencies when creating regulations based on an ambiguous law. Congress routinely enacts open-ended laws that give latitude to agencies to work out — and adjust — the details to new circumstances.

“Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion. “Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, the son of a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, wrote separately to call Chevron Deference “a grave anomaly when viewed against the sweep of historic judicial practice.”

The 1984 decision, he said, “undermines core rule-of-law values ranging from the promise of fair notice to the promise of a fair hearing,” adding that it “operated to undermine rather than advance reliance interests, often to the detriment of ordinary Americans.”

Liberals say ruling is ‘judicial hubris’

Justice Elana Kagan, writing a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberals said that, with the overturning of Chevron, “a rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris.”

“In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue — no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden — involving the meaning of regulatory law. As if it did not have enough on its plate, the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar,” Kagan wrote.

The majority, she added, “disdains restraint, and grasps for power.”

Conservatives have long sought to rein in regulatory authority, arguing that Washington has too much control over American industry and individual lives. The justices have been incrementally diminishing federal power for years, but the new case gave the court an opportunity to take a much broader stride.

In the case of the fishermen who brought the case, the law allowed the government to mandate the observers but was silent on the question of who had to pay their salaries, which the fisherman argue added roughly $700 a day to their costs. They encouraged the court to rule that agencies couldn’t enact such a requirement without explicit approval from Congress.

The Supreme Court had been trending in that direction for years, knocking back attempts by federal agencies in other contexts to approve regulations on their own. In 2021, for instance, the court’s conservatives struck down a Biden administration effort to extend an eviction moratorium first approved during the Trump administration. Last year, the court’s conservatives similarly invalidated a Biden plan to wipe out student loans of millions of Americans.

Just lit a match and tossed it

The Supreme Court just lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies

SEC v. Jarkesy could render much of the federal government unable to function.

by Ian Millhiser

On Thursday, the Court handed down a 6-3 decision, on a party-line vote, that could render a simply astonishing array of federal laws unenforceable. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, “the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.”

The dispute in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy turns on whether a hedge fund manager accused of defrauding investors is entitled to a jury trial to determine whether he violated federal securities law, or whether the government acted properly when it tried him before an official known as an “administrative law judge” (ALJ).

The charges against this hedge fund manager, George Jarkesy, are civil and not criminal, which matters because the Constitution treats civil trials very differently from criminal proceedings. While the Sixth Amendment provides that “in all criminal prosecutions” the defendant is entitled to a jury trial, the Seventh Amendment provides a more limited jury trial right, requiring them “in suits at common law” (more on what that means later).

If the question of whether Jarkesy is entitled to a jury trial arose in the absence of any precedent, then he’d have a reasonably strong case that he should prevail. But, as Sotomayor lays out in her dissent, nearly 170 years of precedent cut against Jarkesy’s position.

Congress, moreover, has enacted a wide range of laws on the presumption that many enforcement proceedings may be brought before administrative law judges and not juries. According to one somewhat dated review of federal law cited by Sotomayor, “by 1986, there were over 200” federal statutes calling for trials before ALJs.

Some of these laws, including the one allowing the SEC to bring enforcement actions against people like Jarkesy, give the government a choice. That is, they allow federal agencies to bring a proceeding either before an ALJ or before a federal district court that may conduct a jury trial. So the SEC, at least, has the option of retrying Jarkesy in a district court.

But, as Sotomayor warns, many federal agencies — including the “Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Department of Agriculture, and many others” — may only seek civil penalties in administrative proceedings. That means that a wide array of laws guaranteeing workplace safety and advancing other important federal goals could cease to function after Jarkesy.

The Jarkesy case, in other words, is an example of the Roberts Court at its most arrogant. Were the Court tasked with resolving the dispute on a blank slate, then there are entirely plausible arguments that Mr. Jarkesy should be entitled to a jury trial. But that ship sailed many years ago, and the federal government has operated for an exceedingly long time on the assumption that many disputes can be adjudicated by ALJs.

By upending this longstanding assumption, the Court may have just thrown huge swaths of the federal government — particularly enforcement by those agencies Sotomayor listed — into chaos.

So when does a civil defendant have a right to a jury trial?

The Seventh Amendment provides that civil litigants generally have a right to a jury trial “in suits at common law,” but what does that mean?

Broadly speaking, the common law refers to the body of judge-made law developed by English courts, much of which was imported into American law and which still governs many American lawsuits involving matters such as contracts and torts. Common law courts typically had the power to award money damages to a victorious plaintiff, which distinguishes them from courts of “equity” that had the power to issue injunctions and other non-monetary relief.

Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion in Jarkesy leans heavily into the kind of remedy available to the SEC if it prevails in a suit before an ALJ. Like a suit before a common law court, the SEC sought monetary damages from Jarkesy, and thus this case resembles a suit at common law in that way. As Roberts writes, “money damages are the prototypical common law remedy.”

Additionally, Roberts notes that common law courts also historically had the power to hear suits alleging fraud. Thus, the suit against Jarkesy resembles a common law suit in that way as well.

Most of this part of Roberts’s opinion is uncontroversial. His disagreement with Sotomayor turns on a longstanding exception to the jury trial right known as the “public rights” doctrine.

The term “common law” refers to judge-created law developed over the course of many centuries, as distinct from law created by acts of a state legislature or Congress. The somewhat unhelpfully named public rights doctrine provides that many lawsuits that arise under federal statutes are not subject to the Seventh Amendment, and thus the government is free to try these cases in an administrative proceeding without a jury.

The earliest Supreme Court case applying this public rights doctrine was handed down in 1856, so it isn’t exactly an idea invented by 20th-century Progressive Era reformers who wanted to eliminate barriers to law enforcement. As the Court explained in Atlas Roofing v. OSHA (1977), the doctrine applies when Congress passes a law authorizing suits by the federal government that are “unknown to the common law.”

In “cases in which the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights created by statutes within the power of Congress to enact,” Atlas Roofing held, “the Seventh Amendment does not prohibit Congress from assigning the factfinding function and initial adjudication to an administrative forum with which the jury would be incompatible.”

Thus, this public rights doctrine does have limits. It applies only to suits brought by the federal government, and only when the government sues to enforce a federal statute authorizing a kind of suit that did not already exist under the common law. But, in those circumstances, trial before an ALJ is permitted.

Though Roberts’s opinion denies that it overrules Atlas Roofing and similar cases, he speaks of that decision in disparaging terms. And his opinion places such an extraordinary amount of weight on the fact that the SEC sought money damages against Mr. Jarkesy that it is unclear how much, if any, of the public rights doctrine remains.

Were this the first time that such an issue came up, that might not be that big of a deal. Had Congress known a century ago that the Supreme Court would someday eliminate its ability to assign certain cases to ALJs, it could have written hundreds of statutes differently so that they would be enforced in jury trials. It also could have appropriated sufficient money to federal agencies to allow them to hire trial counsel who could bring proceedings in federal district courts.

But Congress has instead operated for many decades under the assumption that cases like Atlas Roofing are good law. And now the Supreme Court has pulled the rug out from under a multitude of federal statutes.

This Court doesn’t typically care this much about the Seventh Amendment

In light of the Court’s newfound appreciation for civil jury trials, it’s worth noting that the Court’s Republican appointees have historically read the Seventh Amendment very narrowly in cases that do not involve hedge fund managers.

The Court has long held that companies may force their workers and consumers to sign away their right to sue that company in a real court — one that can conduct a jury trial — and instead have the case heard by a private arbitrator. The Court has, at times, claimed that forced arbitration is lawful because workers and consumers nominally consent to arbitration when they decide to do business with the company. But many of the Court’s arbitration decisions raise very serious questions about whether the justices understand what the word “consent” means.

In Epic Systems v. Lewis (2018), for example, the Court held that an employer can simply order their employees to give up their right to a jury trial, under pain of termination.

So the Court’s approach to the Seventh Amendment is incoherent, and after Jarkesy, it could lead to dozens or even hundreds of federal laws arbitrarily ceasing to function.

Getting away with it

Donald Trump is getting away with it

The debate proved that Donald Trump is still a threat to democracy. How have we lost sight of that?

by Zack Beauchamp

Three separate times during Thursday night’s debate, CNN’s moderators asked Donald Trump if he would commit to accepting the legitimacy of the 2024 election results regardless of who won. He never did.

Instead, Trump said that he’d accept the results if he thought they were “fair and legal and good” — while at the same time repeating the false claim that the 2020 election was shot through with fraud (a claim that the moderators let stand).

Put together, the former president was all but openly telling us that he’s ready to repeat the campaign of lies and incitement that produced a mob attack on the Capitol less than four years ago. (He did offer a rote rejection of political violence.)

That all of this felt normal, even expected, shows how much Donald Trump has warped our sense of what’s tolerable in America. Here was an authoritarian spouting falsehoods, ranting incoherently about policy, issuing thinly veiled threats against democracy, and somehow we’ve come to accept it.

We’re all so used to this behavior, in fact, that we have trouble reminding ourselves how dangerous it is. I can guarantee Trump’s comments on the election won’t be the top headline at any major newspaper in the country.

That honor will likely go to Joe Biden’s poor performance, and I can understand why. The president of the United States barely stringing a cogent answer together for the first hour of a nationally televised debate is indeed a major story. It seems like the critics warning about Biden’s age had a point.

But there’s something quietly obscene about Trump’s naked authoritarianism falling out of the frame. It wasn’t only these few comments about election results: It was his entire performance, a cavalcade of lies that betrayed a staggering contempt for the American public’s intelligence.

On Thursday night, an authoritarian put his distaste for democracy on open display. Opposite him was a man who claims to care about democracy above all else but has seemed wholly incapable of considering whether there might be some tension between its future and his own ambitions.

Blame Biden for running again. Blame the Democratic Party for failing to stop him. Blame CNN for burying the democracy questions halfway through the debate. Blame the Republicans for nominating Trump. Blame Trump, most of all, for acting the way he chooses to act — and his voters for standing by him while he does it.

Trump reminded us tonight that he is uniquely unfit for office and hostile to our democracy. The fact that those qualities have lost their ability to shock underscores just how much the man has bent our politics to his will.

Cracks in the road...

Cracks in road cause indefinite closure of scenic California highway

By Greta Reich

Part of state Route 154, an oft-debated shortcut from US 101 on the way to or from Santa Barbara, is closed indefinitely while repairs are made to cracks in the road discovered June 21.

“At this time, there is no estimate for a re-opening or partial re-opening,”  Genelle Padilla, a Caltrans spokesperson wrote in an email to SFGATE. “Each project varies, depending on a variety of factors. The completion of the 24-hour drilling operation could be an indicator for a timeline.”

Of the 32.3 steep and winding miles of Highway 154 between Buellton and Santa Barbara’s upper State Street, about 6.5 miles are closed to the public due to the repairs, from San Antonio Creek Road to Painted Cave Road. 

“The cracks are indicative of a weakness below the highway or in the area of the slip out,” Padilla said. “The drilling of steel dowels into the rock horizontally and vertically help support the roadway and allow for weight (vehicles) to be placed on the roadway.”

The route cuts through the Santa Ynez Valley facing Los Padres National Forest north of Santa Barbara. Around 17,000 vehicles per day move through the closed area of the highway, according to Padilla. 

Travelers can still drive on Highway 154 from State Route 192, better known as Foothill Road, in Santa Barbara, and from US 101 and State Route 246, which runs from Lompoc to Solvang, but they will not be able to pass through the closed portion, according to a Caltrans news release.

“This location has been the site of an ongoing project to repair a slip-out as a result of winter storm damage,” Padilla wrote, describing the work at the edge of the paved road. “During this ongoing work, pavement/shoulder cracks were observed late last week which resulted in initial traffic control and the full closure.”

The disruption has caused some frustration among regular commuters, who are also dealing with construction on a nearby part of US 101. Reddit user PinkSwan wrote Monday, “154 is closed and 101 is one lane Southbound between Beullton and Gibralter. Took me 1 hr 40 minutes to drive that stretch yesterday afternoon, usually a 10 minute drive.”

Really no point to this......

Here's a look at some of the false claims made during Biden and Trump's first debate

By The Associated Press

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs and a variety of false and misleading information as they faced off in their first debate of the 2024 election.

Trump falsely represented the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a relatively small number of people who were ushered in by police and misstated the strength of the economy during his administration.

Biden, who tends to lean more on exaggerations and embellishments rather than outright lies, misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using disinfectant to address COVID. Here’s a look at the false and misleading claims on Thursday night by the two candidates.

JAN. 6

TRUMP: “They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”

THE FACTS: That's false. The attack on the U.S. Capitol was the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years. As thoroughly documented by video, photographs and people who were there, thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill in what became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police.

In an internal memo on March 7, 2023, U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said that the allegation that “our officers helped the rioters and acted as ‘tour guides’” is “outrageous and false.” A Capitol Police spokesperson confirmed the memo’s authenticity to The Associated Press. More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot. More than 850 people have pleaded guilty to crimes, and 200 others have been convicted at trial.

TRUMP, on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s actions on Jan. 6: “Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard and she turned them down."

THE FACTS: Pelosi did not direct the National Guard. Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell called for military assistance, including from the National Guard.

The Capitol Police Board makes the decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol. It is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol. The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.

The House Sergeant at Arms reported to Pelosi and the Senate Sergeant at Arms reported to McConnell. There is no evidence that either Pelosi or McConnell directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand. Drew Hammill, a then-spokesperson for Pelosi, said after the insurrection that Pelosi was never informed of such a request.

TRUMP, on Biden: “He wants to raise your taxes by four times.”

THE FACTS: That’s not accurate.

Trump has used that line at rallies, but it has no basis in fact. Biden actually wants to prevent tax increases on anyone making less than $400,000, which is the vast majority of taxpayers.

More importantly, Biden’s budget proposal does not increase taxes as much as Trump claims, though the increases are focused on corporations and the wealthy. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for individuals are set to expire after 2025, because they were not fully funded when they became law.

TRUMP, referring to Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Biden’s victory: “On January 6th we had the lowest taxes ever. We had the lowest regulations ever on January 6th.”

THE FACTS: The current federal income tax was only instituted in 1913, and tax rates have fluctuated significantly in the decades since. Rates were lower in the 1920s, just prior to the Great Depression. Trump did cut taxes during his time in the White House, but the rates weren't the lowest in history.

Government regulations have also ebbed and flowed in the country’s history, but there’s been an overall increase in regulations as the country modernized and its population grew. There are now many more regulations covering the environment, employment, financial transactions and other aspects of daily life. While Trump slashed some regulations, he didn’t take the country back to the less regulated days of its past.

INSULIN

BIDEN: “It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.”

THE FACTS: No, that’s not exactly right. Out-of-pocket insulin costs for older Americans on Medicare were capped at $35 in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law. The cap took effect last year, when many drugmakers announced they would lower the price of the drug to $35 for most users on private insurance. But Biden regularly overstates that many people used to pay up to $400 monthly. People with diabetes who have Medicare or private insurance paid about $450 yearly prior to the law, a Department of Health and Human Services study released in December 2022 found.

CLIMATE CHANGE

TRUMP, touting his environmental record, said that “during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever” and that he supports “immaculate” air and water.

THE FACTS: That’s far from the whole story. During his presidency, Trump rolled back some provisions of the Clean Water Act, eased regulations on coal, oil and gas companies and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. When wildfires struck California in 2020, Trump dismissed the scientific consensus that climate change had played a role. Trump also dismissed scientists’ warnings about climate change and routinely proposed deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. Those reductions were blocked by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

ABORTION

TRUMP: “The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.”

THE FACTS: Trump inaccurately referred to abortions after birth. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

Abortion rights advocates say terms like this and “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Abortions later in pregnancy also are usually the result of serious complications, such as fetal anomalies, that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk, medical experts say. In most cases, these are also wanted pregnancies, experts say.

TRUMP on Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia: “He should have had him out a long time ago, but Putin’s probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time.”

THE FACTS: Trump is wrong to say that Biden pays any sort of fee “every time” to secure the release of hostages and wrongfully detained Americans. There’s also zero evidence that Putin is asking for any money in order to free Gershkovich. Just like in the Trump administration, the deals during the Biden administration that have brought home hostages and detainees involved prisoner swaps -- not money transfers.

Trump’s reference to money appeared to be about the 2023 deal in which the U.S. secured the release of five detained Americans in Iran after billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets were transferred from banks in South Korea to Qatar. The U.S. has said that that the money would be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food.

COVID-19

BIDEN: Trump told Americans to “inject bleach” into their arms to treat COVID-19.

THE FACTS: That’s overstating it. Rather, Trump asked whether it would be possible to inject disinfectant into the lungs.

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute,” he said at an April 2020 press conference. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”

SUPER PREDATORS

TRUMP: “What he’s done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them ‘super predators.’ … We can’t forget that - super predators … And they’ve taken great offense at it.”

THE FACTS: This oft-repeated claim by Trump dating back to the 2020 campaign is untrue. It was Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, who used the term “super predator” to advocate for the 1994 crime bill that Biden co-authored more than thirty years ago. Biden did warn of “predators” in a floor speech in support of his bill.

MIGRANTS

TRUMP, referring to Biden: “He’s the one that killed people with a bad border and flooding hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they come in.”

THE FACTS: A mass influx of migrants coming into the U.S. illegally across the southern border has led to a number of false and misleading claims by Trump. For example, he regularly claims other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions to send to the U.S. There is no evidence to support that.

Trump has also argued the influx of immigrants is causing a crime surge in the U.S., although statistics actually show violent crime is on the way down.

There have been recent high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally. But FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. Studies have found that people living in the country illegally are less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes. For more than a century, critics of immigration have sought to link new arrivals to crime. In 1931, the Wickersham Commission did not find any evidence supporting a connection between immigration and increased crime, and many studies since then have reached similar conclusions.

Texas is the only state that tracks crimes by immigration status. A 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found “considerably lower felony arrest rates” among people in the United States illegally than legal immigrants or native-born.

Some crime is expected given the large population of immigrants. There were an estimated 10.5 million people in the country illegally in 2021, according to the latest estimate by Pew Research Center, a figure that has almost certainly risen with large influxes at the border. In 2022, the Census Bureau estimated the foreign-born population at 46.2 million, or nearly 14% of the total, with most states seeing double-digit percentage increases in the last dozen years.

CHARLOTTESVILLE

BIDEN, referring to Trump after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017: “The one who said I think they’re fine people on both sides."

THE FACTS: Trump did use those words to describe attendees of the deadly rally, which was planned by white nationalists. But as Trump supporters have pointed out, he also said that day that he wasn’t talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists in attendance.

“You had some very bad people in that group,” Trump said during a news conference a few days after the rally, “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

He then added that he wasn’t talking about “the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” Instead, he said, the press had been unfair in its treatment of protesters who were there to innocently and legally protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The gathering planned by white nationalists shocked the nation when it exploded into chaos: violent brawling in the streets, racist and antisemitic chants, smoke bombs, and finally, a car speeding into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens more.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: We had the greatest economy in history.”

THE FACTS: That’s not accurate. First of all, the pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy. Trump had the ignominy of leaving the White House with fewer jobs than when he entered.

But even if you take out issues caused by the pandemic, economic growth averaged 2.67% during Trump’s first three years. That’s pretty solid. But it’s nowhere near the 4% averaged during Bill Clinton’s two terms from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger so far under Biden than under Trump.

Trump did have the unemployment rate get as low as 3.5% before the pandemic. But again, the labor force participation rate for people 25 to 54 — the core of the U.S. working population — was higher under Clinton. The participation rate has also been higher under Biden than Trump.

Trump also likes to talk about how low inflation was under him. Gasoline fell as low as $1.77 a gallon. But, of course, that price dip happened during pandemic lockdowns when few people were driving. The low prices were due to a global health crisis, not Trump’s policies.

Similarly, average 30-year mortgage rates dipped to 2.65% during the pandemic. Those low rates were a byproduct of Federal Reserve efforts to prop up a weak economy, rather than the sign of strength that Trump now suggests it was.

MILITARY DEATHS

BIDEN: “The truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any — this decade — any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did."

”THE FACTS: At least 16 service members have been killed in hostile action since Biden took office in January 2021. On Aug. 26, 2021, 13 died during a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as U.S. troops withdrew from the country. An enemy drone killed three U.S. service members at a desert base in Jordan on Jan. 28 of this year.

PRESIDENTIAL RECORD

BIDEN: “159, or 58, don’t know an exact number, presidential historians, they’ve had meetings and they voted, who is the worst president in American history … They said he was the worst in all American history. That’s a fact. That’s not conjecture."

THE FACTS: That’s almost right, but not quite. The survey in question, a project from professors at the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, included 154 usable responses, from 525 respondents invited to participate.

GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS

TRUMP, on Minneapolis protests after the killing of George Floyd: “If I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.”

THE FACTS: Trump didn’t call the National Guard into Minneapolis during the unrest following the death of George Floyd. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz deployed the National Guard to the city.

Blames Canada...

Donald Trump blames Nancy Pelosi for Jan. 6 attack during presidential debate

By Alec Regimbal

Former President Donald Trump blamed California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol during the year’s first presidential debate Thursday night.

CNN host Jake Tapper, who helped moderate the network’s debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, asked what Trump would say to voters who believe he “violated” his official oath to defend the U.S. Constitution through his “actions and inaction” as hordes of his supporters swarmed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the results of the 2020 election from being certified.

Trump initially dodged the question, but when pressed by Tapper, he referenced newly revealed footage that showed Pelosi — being filmed by her daughter, documentarian Alexandra Pelosi — saying she had not done enough to prepare the U.S. Capitol Police for a large-scale protest that Trump had called for.

"[The U.S. Capitol Police] clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more," she says in the footage.

Still, Trump said Pelosi was, in fact, “responsible” for the building’s lack of defense, saying he had recognized that “a lot of people” were going to be on the grounds on Jan. 6 and offered to deploy 10,000 troops from the National Guard to form a bulwark against the protesters. But, he said, Pelosi turned down the offer.

“I said, ‘They ought to have some National Guard’ or whatever, and I offered it to her, and she now admits that she turned it down,” Trump said. “... She can’t be very happy with her daughter, because it made her into a liar. She said, ‘I take full responsibility for January 6.’”

Pelosi does not say she takes full responsibility for the attack in the video footage, and, according to the Associated Press, “As Speaker of the House, Pelosi does not direct the National Guard.” Additionally, the U.S. Capitol Police and the National Guard are completely separate agencies.

The footage, which was released publicly earlier this month by a Republican-controlled congressional committee, has been touted by GOP lawmakers and conservative commentators in recent weeks as a way to downplay Trump’s role in the attack ahead of the upcoming Nov. 5 election.

In reality, Trump encouraged his supporters to come to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

He wrote, “Be there, will be wild! in a tweet he posted on Dec. 19, 2020 — and frequently repeated baseless claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him in the weeks after Biden was declared the winner. His speech at a rally outside the White House just before the attack has also been repeatedly scrutinized. In it, he said, “We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” among other inflammatory remarks. 

Comet 13P/Olbers

Not a paradox, Comet 13P/Olbers is returning to the inner Solar System after 68 years. The periodic, Halley-type comet will reach its next perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on June 30 and has become a target for binocular viewing low in planet Earth's northern hemisphere night skies. But this sharp telescopic image of 13P is composed of stacked exposures made on the night of June 25. It easily reveals shifting details in the bright comet's torn and tattered ion tail buffeted by the wind from an active Sun, along with a broad, fanned-out dust tail and slightly greenish coma. The frame spans over two degrees across a background of faint stars toward the constellation Lynx.

He Dodged.

Donald Trump Was Asked (Twice) If He’d Do Anything on Climate. He Dodged.

“I had the best environmental numbers ever.”

JACKIE FLYNN MOGENSEN

During Thursday’s presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, moderator and CNN anchor Dana Bash asked Trump what, if anything, he’d do to address climate change.

Last year, Bash noted, was the hottest year in recorded history: “Communities across the country are confronting the devastating effects of extreme heat, intensifying wildfires, stronger hurricanes, and rising sea levels,” she said, pointing out that Trump has vowed to repeal Biden’s climate initiatives. “But,” Bash asked, “will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?”

Trump dodged the question, instead opting to speak on criminal justice reform and immigration. Bash asked him again, “Thiry-eight seconds left. Will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?”

“I want absolutely immaculate, clean water,” he said. “I want absolutely clean air. And we had it. We had H20.” (The “immaculate” water line is something Trump has said before.) “During my four years,” he added, “I had the best environmental numbers ever. My top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage actually.” (It’s unclear what Trump meant here, but during his time in office, Trump gutted dozens of environmental rules.)

Biden, whose debate performance was widely seen as being lackluster, responded emphatically, saying that he’d passed “the most extensive climate change legislation in history.”

“I don’t where the hell he’s been,” Biden said. “The cleanest water? He hadn’t done a damn thing for the environment.” Biden pointed out that Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, which Biden re-joined. “The only existential threat to humanity is climate change, and he didn’t do a damn thing about it.” Trump, meanwhile, had insisted the agreement would be a “rip off” for the United States.

Biden, with the last word, said, “The idea that he claims that he has the biggest heart up here, and he’s really concerned about pollution and climate—I haven’t seen any indication of that.”

Into a Slur..........

Trump Turned “Palestinian” Into a Slur

We’ve already seen where it leads when presidential candidates embrace such sickening racism.

JEREMY SCHULMAN

Five months ago, during a GOP presidential debate, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis whether he’d endorse ethnic cleansing. “Do you support the mass removal of Palestinians from Gaza?” Tapper inquired.

“As president, I am not going to tell [the Israeli government] to do that. I think there’s a lot of issues with that,” DeSantis said. “But if they make the calculation that to avert a second Holocaust, they need to do that—I think some of these Palestinian Arabs, Saudi Arabia should take some. Egypt should take some.”

Even in the context of all the violence and bigotry that so many people have endured since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza, DeSantis’ comments were shocking—difficult to explain, much less to comprehend. But tonight, on a different presidential debate stage, the man who defeated DeSantis for the Republican nomination showed us the kind of unvarnished racism and dehumanization that might indeed lead a politician to casually sanction war crimes.

Donald Trump criticized Joe Biden’s efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, insisting that Biden should let Israel “finish the job.” Then the former president reduced an entire people into a political insult. Biden has “become like a Palestinian,” Trump said. “But they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”

It was an awful moment on an awful night in an awful presidential campaign. It’s only going to get worse.

Particularly Appalling

Trump’s Lies About Abortion in America Were Particularly Appalling

He falsely claimed that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe overturned, and that Democrats intend to execute newborns.

JULIANNE MCSHANE

Former President Donald Trump did manage to say one accurate thing about abortion at Thursday night’s CNN presidential debate: He’s responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. “I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court,” Trump said, “and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the States.”

This isn’t the first time Trump has boasted about yanking the constitutional right to abortion from Americans. As I’ve written, he previously has bragged about appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe.

But otherwise, Trump’s lied constantly about the realities of abortion in the US during the first debate. For example, Trump insisted that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. As reproductive rights scholar and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray said when I asked her for comment: “Yeah, that’s a lie.” In fact, several legal scholars have noted the overturning of Roe undermines the legitimacy of the court given the blatant disregard for precedent, or stare decisis, that the conservative justices showed in issuing the Dobbs decision. Legal scholars also filed several amicus briefs in the Dobbs case urging the court not to overturn Roe. 

Trump also falsely claimed that the Supreme Court “just approved the abortion pill,” referring to the recent case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, brought by anti-abortion extremists, which sought to roll back some rule changes by the FDA that made mifepristone, the first of two pills used in a medication abortion, easier to access. In fact, as my colleague Nina Martin wrote, the court did not “approve” the pill, but instead ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, since it was based on several hypotheticals:

The Alliance [Defending Freedom, a right-wing religious law firm] contended that a patient might be one of the rare people for whom the abortion pill didn’t work as intended, that she might then seek emergency care at a hospital, where she might encounter a provider who might belong to one of the anti-abortion groups in the lawsuit, who might be put in the position of having to perform an emergency procedure to remove the fetus. 

This matters because other plaintiffs could try to bring a challenge to mifepristone back to the Supreme Court in the future—and, as some reproductive scholars have written, the conservative justices appeared to signal that they’d be other to hearing other challenges to mifepristone in the future.

Another potential challenge to the pills may be found in the Comstock Act, the 19th-century anti-obscenity law that bars the mailing of “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use.” Trump’s acolytes at Project 2025, a plan of action for his second term devised by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, have explicitly said a conservative Justice Department should marshal the law to criminalize “providers and distributors of [abortion] pills.”

Trump did say tonight that he agreed with the high court’s decision in the mifepristone case, adding, “I will not block it.” But given the role Trump has already played in decimating abortion access nationwide, it’s far more prudent to pay attention to what he does about abortion, not what he says. Abortion rights advocates agree. When I asked Elisa Wells, co-director and co-founder of Plan C, a campaign focused on medication abortion access, if she believed Trump’s pledge not to block mifepristone if reelected, she replied, “I do not find Trump to be credible on any subject.”

Another example was Trump’s claim that he supports “exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.” That’s great. But reporting has suggested that so-called exceptions do not exist in real life. Moreover, many of his supporters would like him to go further and ban all abortions. Jonathan Mitchell, the conservative lawyer behind the Texas abortion ban, told the New York Times in February, “We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books.”

Perhaps most egregiously—and preposterously—Trump insisted that Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.” Let’s break that down. First, federal data shows more than 90 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester. Research has shown that abortions in the third trimester are extremely rare—constituting only one percent of abortions—and they typically only occur when there are major medical concerns regarding the health of the mother or the fetus, or as KFF states, “barriers to care that cause delays in obtaining an abortion.” And regarding his claim that Democrats or physicians kill newborns, that procedure is already outlawed at the federal level. 

So Trump spewed a lot of lies about abortion tonight. But, as I’ve written, the facts about what he’s responsible for thanks to the overturning of Roe—young victims of rape or incest being forced to give birth or travel across state lines to access abortion, and women facing life-threatening pregnancy complications due to inability to access abortion, just to name a few—are simple facts, far away from political posturing.

Well that was a shit show...

It started with an old man walking onto stage, and the fucking psychopath rolling on stage...

It ended with an old man on stage, and a fucking lying fat psychopath rolling off stage.......

The Debate (If that is what you want to call it)

So tonight the debate will  happen, in just a few hours actually. So what will happen???

I see it as 1) Biden does well - the orange nazi shit tanks, 2) Biden does poorly - the ornage turd preforms like shit, 3) Biden does average and the orange nazi convict manages to squeak through without flushing..

Find out tomorrow... 

Ask About the Economy

Hey, Jake and Dana: Here’s What to Ask About the Economy

Come January, one of these men will be governing, and we don’t know nearly enough about what they will do over the next four years.

By VICTORIA GUIDA

Victoria Guida is an economics reporter covering the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and the forces driving economic policy. Her column, CAPITAL LETTER, demystifies the policies, people and institutions that shape the financial system and the broader economy.

Presidential debate moderators could use some help in drafting questions about the economy. If you don’t know what I mean, just look at the last few general elections.

“What are the major differences between the two of you about how you would go about creating new jobs?” Jim Lehrer asked President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to start their first debate in 2012.

Lester Holt opened with this one in 2016: “Secretary Clinton, why are you a better choice than your opponent to create the kinds of jobs that will put more money into the pockets of American workers?”

And here was Chris Wallace’s first economic question in 2020: “President Trump, you say we are in a V-shaped recovery. Vice President Biden, you say it’s more of a K-shape. What difference does that mean to the American people in terms of the economy?”

These are all … fine.

But in each case, the moderator is ultimately just saying: “Talk about the economy.”

It would be nice, instead, to dig a little deeper into the specific challenges that will be facing the next president and how each candidate would approach them.

This is a debate between two men who have already been president and whose records are more familiar. Much of the campaign has been focused on apocalyptic rhetoric and shapeless debates about whether the economy is good or bad.

But come January, one of these men will be governing, and we don’t know nearly enough about what they will do over the next four years. And in areas where they have overlapping or conflicting priorities, it would be helpful to more clearly illuminate their differences.

For example, Trump — after blowing up the free-trade consensus in Washington during his first term — has again made tariffs a centerpiece of his policy platform. He talks about them as a super-powered tool that will get companies to build factories here, punish countries that do things we don’t like and raise revenue for U.S. government coffers.

But does Trump want tariffs as a tool to raise revenue? Or to decrease imports? Because if you set tariffs high enough to significantly reduce imports, there will be few tariffs to collect. Or does he want them as a negotiating tool to leverage change in our trading partners?

What’s the endgame?

Biden has advocated for a more limited scope of tariffs but has similarly embraced them as a tool for countering China and boosting domestic manufacturing.

So, one question I’d like to ask them both: Are there any downsides to tariffs?

Economists, of course, would say yes. But given the shifting political consensus around trade policy, it would be instructive to hear from both Biden and Trump how extensively they reject the rap against tariffs and how they would balance tradeoffs.

(A follow-up question, if there are no downsides: Why not put really high tariffs on everything?)

Here are some more questions I’d ask if I were the moderator:

Americans cite housing costs as a top consideration for how they will vote in this election. How will you increase the supply of affordable housing?

Biden has some proposals that would subsidize the cost for people trying to buy a home. But that doesn’t fix anything about why it’s so expensive to buy a house in the first place: There aren’t enough of them.

The president has taken targeted action on the supply side, including more measures just this week, but they all just nibble around the margins of the problem. He’s outlined more extensive ideas in his proposed budget, but is he willing to use political capital with Congress to do more?

Trump’s campaign has said the presumptive GOP nominee’s plan includes cutting taxes, freeing up federal land and stopping illegal immigration. But we haven’t heard much directly from him on this, and it’s unclear how much of a priority it is for him.

He has homed in on one argument: Democrats want to wage a “war on the suburbs” by getting rid of single-family zoning.

President Trump, you’ve criticized the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, for its interest rate decisions. President Biden, you’ve previously suggested that the Fed should focus more on racial equity. Should there be reforms to the Federal Reserve?

Trump regularly harangued Fed Chair Jerome Powell, his own appointee, for not cutting rates to zero during his presidency. (Rates that low are reserved for an economy that needs a lot of help, so it was actually a sign of the economy’s strength that the Fed did not do this.) He even considered removing Powell from office, although it’s an open question whether the central bank chief can be legally removed solely because the president disagrees with him on policy.

Since leaving office, Trump has suggested he would replace Powell with someone else. The Wall Street Journal has reported that some of his advisers are going further, considering ways for the Republican candidate to more directly influence monetary policy. Asking Trump this question might reveal whether he has an agenda that goes beyond bashing Powell personally.

As for Biden, he has been respectful of the modern-era tradition of keeping the Fed at arms’ length — so-called political independence that is supposed to allow the central bank to make decisions that are best for the economy over the long term, even if they require hard choices in the short term.

But does Biden really want the Fed to do more to take on racial injustice — or climate change, as some of his supporters believe it should? Let’s find out.

The 2017 tax cuts expire at the end of next year, and you’ve both advocated extending at least some of them. But you’ve also both talked about the dangers of the growing national debt. Is it a good idea to decrease how much revenue the government is taking in, by potentially trillions of dollars?

There will be a fight over taxes next year, no matter who wins the election and no matter the makeup of Congress. If lawmakers don’t act, the tax cuts passed under Trump will expire and many people’s taxes will go up.

For his part, the Republican candidate has advocated lowering the corporate tax rate further after lowering them 14 percentage points during his first term. But there are early signs that some in his party might actually advocate for a higher rate, in an effort to help slow the growth of the national debt. After all, there are two ways to reduce deficits: reduce spending and increase revenue.

Biden has called for raising taxes only on people making more than $400,000 and for corporations.

But extending any of the tax cuts will add more to the debt. How much does that bother either of them?

Do certain companies have too much power in the U.S.?

Both Trump and Biden’s presidencies were characterized by aggressive moves on antitrust. Under Trump, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission investigated Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google — ultimately suing the latter two — and DOJ challenged (unsuccessfully) AT&T’s purchase of TimeWarner.

Biden, meanwhile, has made competition a central theme of his presidency, issuing a 2021 executive order calling on more than a dozen agencies to take action across sectors to take on price gouging, non-compete agreements and more. Last year, the FTC accused Amazon of suppressing competition to rip off sellers and consumers (a lawsuit that the company has called “misguided”).

But how do the men themselves see these issues?

Trump as president famously liked to tweet barbs at businesses that were doing things he didn’t like, such as outsourcing. He particularly directed his anger at tech companies he said were suppressing conservative ideas. Do his thoughts on corporate power go past company-specific grievances?

Biden has been less direct about individual companies but has criticized grocery stores for “shrinkflation,” where companies charge the same amount for less of a product. And while you could craft a picture of the president’s stance based on what his administration has done, it would be revealing to hear more about how he personally frames it — beyond his standard line: “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation.”

Undermine the results

Trump debate playbook: Skip mock debates, fundraise and undermine the results

Allies close to the former president suggest he needs to come across as more disciplined.

By MERIDITH MCGRAW and NATALIE ALLISON

Donald Trump in recent days gave speeches in Washington and Philadelphia and greeted supporters at a cheesesteak restaurant in Pennsylvania. He flew to New Orleans for a fundraiser Monday, and called in to a roundtable with Black leaders on Wednesday in Atlanta.

Ahead of what could be the most consequential political event of the cycle, Trump has continued campaigning and has eschewed intense debate preparations, even as Joe Biden has remained hidden away at Camp David to get ready.

That’s made easier by the fact that he’s already declared the debate is essentially rigged.

Trump and his team have worked to undermine, undercut and cast doubt on the historic debate before it’s started: They’ve questioned the fairness of CNN moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. Trump and his allies have criticized the format of the debate. They’ve repeatedly asked President Joe Biden to take a drug test.

It’s a playbook Trump has followed for years, most notably ahead of the 2020 election and his criminal trial this spring in Manhattan. If Trump comes out the winner of the debate, his allies predict, then it will be in spite of the obstacles. If Trump stumbles, then he has already set up who and what to blame. It’s also a brand of grievance politics that has long animated Trump’s most fervent supporters and helped him, baselessly, explain away past political failures and legal setbacks.

Allies close to Trump have both privately and publicly suggested that he needs to come across as more disciplined and far less frenetic than he did during his first faceoff with Biden in 2020, when he constantly interrupted his opponent.

“I think Trump has a very simple job Thursday night,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, “Which is to stay calm, tell us what his second term will be like, and basically ignore the attacks and brush them off — the way Reagan did when he said to Carter, ‘There you go again.’”

“The last thing I would want him to do is to overtrain and get to the point where he’s trying to remember what a bunch of people told him,” Gingrich said, calling Trump a “great natural performer.”

And Republicans outside Trump’s close circle see the strategy similarly.

“We need to see not the wild man of the rallies, because those people are already for him,” said Republican strategist Karl Rove. “It’s going to be the people who are on the bubble, who want to see if he seems constructive and calm, and a clear idea of what he wants to do.”

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, who ran in the GOP presidential primary in 2012, put it this way: “Trump needs to offer persuadable voters some measure of comfort that he won’t act like a total maniac if he’s elected.”

In the weeks leading up to the debate, Trump, whose team agreed to the terms of the debate, hasn’t held traditional mock debates. But he has attended private policy meetings on issues like immigration and the economy with close outside allies, senators and his core team of advisers, including Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita and Jason Miller. He has also peppered subject-matter experts with questions in between finance calls, fundraisers, news interviews and campaign rallies.

But the stakes are incredibly high: polling remains stagnant and the Biden and Trump campaigns are battling for a narrow, undecided slice of the voting population who remains undecided. And the scheduling of the June debate, which is historically early, means this debate will set the narrative for 11 weeks until they are expected to square off again in September.

“I think it’s gonna be the most consequential debate since at least 1980, when a lot of people were undecided going into that debate,” Rove said. “[Reagan] at the end of the day asked the question that was on everybody’s minds: ‘Are we better off than we were four years ago? And are we as respected as we were four years ago?’ And the answer then was no.”

Trump has signaled he plans to attack Biden on the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the economy, and the southern border — all familiar refrains from his campaign. While both campaigns have booked ad time Thursday in key battleground states, the Biden team has invested significantly more in doing so — as it has with ads throughout the election — reserving more than $2 million worth of ads Thursday, according to AdImpact. Trump, meanwhile, has booked just $100,000 in ads in swing states during the debate.

Trump’s team found other ways to distract from the debate. On Wednesday, LaCivita tweeted that he was flying down to Trump campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach, Florida, and teased that he may have had a special guest, leading some to speculate it was Trump’s vice presidential pick. Trump in recent days has continued to offer mixed information about his running mate pick, at one point saying he had decided and that the person would be at the debate, while later suggesting the decision was still in the works.

Some of the names on his shortlist — including Sens. J.D. Vance, Tim Scott and Marco Rubio, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — are among the guests at a fundraiser and watch party in Atlanta on Thursday night, and some of Trump’s potential running mate picks are expected to be in the spin room afterward.

Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, a top GOP donor who is hosting the fundraiser during the debate, told POLITICO that several news events playing out in Georgia — the killing of nursing student Laken Riley by an undocumented migrant, and the scandal surrounding Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose own ethics are in question as she tries to prosecute Trump — have only fueled distaste for Biden.

“The America First vision for a bright future won’t just win him the debate, it is resonating with voters from all walks of life, and can win President Trump the election,” Loeffler said.

The day after the debate, Trump is holding a rally with Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, where he is expected to discuss the debate and spin how he thought it went, according to a person with knowledge of Trump’s plans.

In a pre-debate briefing call with reporters on Tuesday, top Trump campaign advisers criticized past media coverage of Biden during live events. Trump’s communications adviser Jason Miller said “many in the media are already prepared to give Joe Biden a participation trophy if he can simply stand upright for 90 minutes.” Miller then read off headlines from 2008 to now that he argued were sympathetic toward Biden.

And the Trump-aligned Heritage Foundation held a press call of their own Tuesday, “sounding the alarm” that Democrats may try to replace Biden on the ticket after the debate. Mike Howell, director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, argued that a “freezing moment” on the debate stage would prompt Democrats to move to replace Biden, and asserted, without evidence, that the public believes Biden has “continence issues.”

Howell said Heritage is preparing to mount legal challenges if proper procedures aren’t followed state by state for replacing a nominee on the ballot.

And if Biden does perform significantly better than expected?

“I think Biden can get a 48- to 72-hour bump at best, and then people will go to the grocery store and they’ll watch the news and they’ll remember why they’re mad,” Gingrich said.

Biden “has more to gain or lose in this debate,” Pawlenty said, given his polling disadvantage and that he is “playing defense on too many vote-driving issues,” like immigration, inflation and crime.

Loyal Trump supporters have been adamant that press coverage of Biden’s public appearances has been too lax — despite alternating between suggesting that Biden is incapable of performing well in public, to arguing that he has game.

“There is some sort of level expectation if Joe Biden fogs a mirror that he’s doing OK,” said David Urban, a past adviser to Trump’s campaigns. “If Biden doesn’t F-up then Democrats will count it as a victory … like ‘Biden fogs mirror, you know, ready to be president again.’”