Cage Matches ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

The Supremes:  The Supreme Court is still sitting on a number of important rulings including the one concerning presidential immunity, but on Friday in US v Rahimi the Justices did finally weigh in on guns in the hands of domestic abusers.  In an 8 to 1 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts the Supreme Court upheld a federal law that bars anyone subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a gun.  Notably Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter, not all that surprising because as he wrote in the 2022 NYS Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen decision which expanded the right to own guns by trashing NYS’s restrictive handgun licensing law, in his view laws restricting gun ownership are only okay if they are “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” In plain speak, Thomas’ view is that since the Constitution, written by a bunch of white guys at a time when his ancestors were chattel and beating the crap out of women and threatening them with guns wasn’t considered problematic, we shouldn’t find it problematic now. The good news is that the rest of the Justices more or less disagree with Thomas with regard to domestic abusers, the bad news is that in most cases, as indicated by their ruling in favor of bump stocks, the majority of the Court’s aversion to gun restrictions still stands. The Court announced that they’ll be issuing some more opinions on Wednesday, just one day before the much-anticipated presidential debate between aspiring king and felon Trump and Biden.  It’s not clear if SCOTUS’ Wednesday opinion dump will include the one concerning presidential immunity but if the Court releases an opinion that concludes that presidents can do whatever they want, maybe Biden should just kick Trump off the stage and declare himself the winner of the 2024 election.  He won’t and he shouldn’t but who doesn’t believe that Trump would do that if he could.    

Debate Prep:  Over the weekend, while Biden was mostly preparing for the Thursday debate, Trump was on the campaign warming up by spewing more inflammatory and insane rhetoric.  He’s still talking about sharks, washing machines, and his admiration for fictional cannibal Hannibal Lechter but has now added a new twisted idea to his demented shtick.  His newest thought which he previewed at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference is that the Ultimate Fighting Championship better known as the UFC should create a sports league for those “tough,” “come from prisons,” “nasty, mean” migrants to fight each other because didn’t the Romans set slaves against each other in ancient times as did the Nazis who entertained themselves by holding fights to the death between their prisoners during their reign of terror. Trump, who bragged once again about how he appointed the Justices who overturned Roe also voiced his support for the new Louisiana law mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in all public schools, particularly ironic given how many of those commandments he’s violated and continues to violate. The Faith & Freedom crowd cheered him on, because nothing says godliness like pitting migrants against each other, bragging about curtailing women’s rights, and trumpeting commandments that they frequently violate.  To that end, last Tuesday Dallas’ Gateway megachurch accepted the resignation of its senior pastor, Trump fan Robert Morris after allegations of his past relationship with a 12-year old girl resurfaced.

Primarily Yours:  Count me as one who will be happy to see tomorrow’s NYS primary over and done with.   The political ads and rather loud, ugly rallies which have tried to turn the Westchester/Bronx race between “pull the fire alarm” incumbent Jamaal Bowman and challenger Westchester County Executive George Latimer into an offensive racial, “colonialist” struggle between Blacks and Jews have been horrifying to watch, particularly given this weekend’s attacks on Jewish Synagogues, and by that I am referring to the violent event in Los Angeles not just the attack in Dagestan, Russia. Bowman, a proud member of the “Squad” who put his foot in it when he said he didn’t believe that any of the October 7 hostages had been sexually assaulted before realizing that even he had gone too far has the very vocal support of AOC and Bernie which may or may not pull him over the finish line.  We’ll know soon enough.  The other race worth watching is for the Democratic nominee for the eastern Long Island seat previously held by Republican Lee Zeldin, a long time Trump devotee.  The primary between the more left leaning Nancy Goroff and the more middle of the road and maybe more electable John Avlon is important because delusionally or not,  Democrats hope that the seat is a possible pick up in their quest to retake the House. Though the two disagree on some things, their debates focused more on criticizing the Republican led House than trashing each other. 

Economics 101:  The Republican party line is that Democrats are bad for the economy and to be fair that line typically works for them even though historically Democrats have done more for economic growth and employment than Republicans.  Apparently, Moody’s Analytics gets that, on Thursday they released a report concluding that a second Biden term would see cooling inflation and continued economic growth while a Trump presidency would be an economic disaster.  That’s not all that surprising since Trump’s economic proposals are focused on winning over his richest donors by promising drastic tax cuts rather than on doing what’s best for the country as a whole.  Among his proposals are bigger than big tariffs on goods from countries like China which despite his claims are not paid for by those countries but instead are paid by US consumers across the income spectrum who would see significant price hikes on imported goods and on US made goods that rely on parts from overseas.            

#BringThemAllHomeNow